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Cue dh AE OME UTR 


LOAN EXHIBITION 
KARLY 
ORLENTAL GCARPETS 


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THES AR Ch UReOTRe HOA © 


MRS, JOHN ALDEN CARPENTER 
President i eae 


F. J. REICHMANN 


Vice President 


AU GUST USS. PrEeASk OD 


Vice President 


EAMES MacVEAGH 


Vice President ie 


GRAHAM ALDIS 


Secretary 


MeCLELLAND BARCLAY 
Treasurer 
MISS ALICE ROULLIER 


Chairman Exhisition Committee 


Bik 410 NORTH MICHIGAN BOULEVAR 


Fanuary + 1926 


(rele deh ise IECOURS Ves ONO ig Bia D 


om 


Thir catalogue, addressed primarily tothose who haveno spectal knowledge of carpets, 
may help to reveal something of an important but insufficiently understood art. The 
complete, though recent emancipation of our ideas as to what constitutes art, has 
restored early Oriental carpets to the high esteem which they held for centuries in 
Europe as well as the Ortent. Now the greatest examples rank indisputably with 
man’s finest aesthetic achievements. Yet, in their deeper and more subtle phases 
they are still sufficiently unfamiliar perhaps to justify the interpretations here offered. 
The attributions are, on the whole, conservative. The new identifications ventured 
are on the basts of recent personal research for which the full evidence will be pub- 
lished shortly. 

The preparation in a few weeks time of a catalogue dealing with fifty carpets 
scattered tn seven different countries, while deprived of one’s own records, photographs 
and library facilities, is atask the dificulty of which colleagues will appreciate and, 
it 1s hoped, judge lentently. It ts not possible to guarantee the accuracy of all of the 
technical details. Adequate light and proper instruments were wanting in several 
instances for absolutely dependable observation. The material and arrangement of 
the wefts are often so baffiing that more time than was available would have been 
required to verify the analysis. 

Had the catalogue been more worthy it would have been dedicated to Dr. Fried- 
erich Sarre in honor of his Sixtieth Birthday, not only because of the pioneer and 
fundamental work which he has done tn the field of Muhammadan Art upon whieh 
every scholar in the feld must stand, but also because of the high and generous tdeals 
which have animated all of his work and set a standard for those who come after him. 

For thorough editing and many indispensable services the author 1s under 
especial obligation to Dr. Phyllis Ackerman. Further gratitude ts due Miss Alice 
Roullier for her loyal assistance through many difficulties. The Exhibition owes a 
spectal debt to Mrs. Edith Rockefeller McCormick for the loan of two carpets 
including the most important piece in the exhibition, to Mr. James F. Ballard for the 
Joan of an exceptional Oushak as well as to the other exhibitors who have cooperated 
to make the exhibition a success. 

The frontispiece color plate was furnished through the kindness of M. & R. 
Stora and reprinted through the courtesy of the International Studio. Three color 
plates and two half tones were furnished by B. Altman & Company. 


December 25, 1925 jad OES) ee 


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AL. ee pan i ‘ ie 























LIST OF EXHIBITORS 


req) 
MR. JAMES F. BALLARD | 1a 


MER S'S) EiD Tela eR OrCre toed La BheRw ea Vile CO oR Blac eke 
2 


Baa lala Ml CAN écne @ OVP eAGNRY: 
New York 


E. BEGHIAN 
London 


BERNHEIMER BR OD BERS 
Munich 


BOHLER & STFINMEY ER 
Lucerne 


GrOiSiie Rey AN ce CAND AE Nie Xe 
New York 


So KEIN 2 GO SATs Kye ASN 
New York 


DEMOTTE 
Paris 


ID GEV EEN Se BeRsO eH ees 
New York 


PW... FR EN GHGs CGA Nive ee 
New York a 


INDJOUD JUAN PR ERY 6 0 
Paris dee 


DIKRAN KELEK IAN 





7 New York | 
VINCENT ROBINSON = 
. London < 
BYoW..S TA ENO Nee ee 
London m" 
M'. ‘& Ris TORE ee 
ga: etl cel) Cee 


ie 
= 
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PARISH WATSON & COMPANY 
New YorR De: : a 





De eBieh OFC ONTENTS 


re Toe) 


List OF EXHIBITORS , ; ; 2 : ; 2 5 : PAGE 8 


INTRODUCTION : 5 : F . : : : 5 5 13 


I 
CARPETS FROM PERSIA 


(A) CARPETS FROM NORTHWEST PERSIA 
1. Medallion Carpet, End of XV or Opening XVI Century. : Dy) 
Lent by Parish Watson 


2. Medallion Carpet, Beginning XVI ane op the Collection 
of the Late Baron von Tucher) ; 29 


Lent by Bernheimer Brothers 


3. Medallion and Animal Carpet, Beginning XVI Century 1 
Lent by Kelekian 

4. Medallion Carpet, XVI Century al 
Lent Anonymously 

5. Garden Carpet, XVIII Century : : 316 


Lent by S. Kent Costikyan 


(B) CARPETS FROM KASHAN AND WESTERN PERSIA 


6. Carpet from the Mosque of Ardebil, Kashan, dated 1539. a 
Lent by Duveen Brothers 

7. Floral Medallion Carpet, Kashan (?), Second Half XVI Century 39 
Lent by M. & R. Stora 

8. Animal Carpet, Western (?) Persia, Third Quarter XVI Century Al 


Lent by Parish Watson 


g. Animal Carpet, Western Persia, End XVI Century . : k 43 
Lent by Bernheimer Brothers 


(Cc) CARPETS FROM EASTERN PERSIA, HERAT (SO-CALLED “ISPAHAN” 
CARPETS) 


10. Fragment of Floral Carpet, Middle XVI Century ; 47 
Lent by Kelekian 


11. Fragment of Animal Carpet, Middle XVI Century. : 47 
Lent by P. W. French && Company 


IO CONS EONG so 


12. Animal Carpet, Middle XVI Century 
Lent by DeMotte 

13. Animal Carpet, Last Third XVI Century 
Lent by Mrs. Edith Rockefeller McCormick 

14. Floral Carpet, Middle or Third Quarter XVI Century 
Lent by Kelekian 

15. So-called “Ispahan”’ Carpet, Second Half XVI Century 
Lent by Duveen Brothers 


(D) CARPETS FROM CENTRAL PERSIA, JOSHAGHAN GHALI (so- 
CALLED VASE CARPETS) 
16. Wase Carpet, End XVI Century 
Lent by Mrs. Edith Rockefeller Micueen 
17. Vase Carpet, Early XVII Century 
Lent by Bernheimer Brothers 
18. Vase Carpet, Early XVII Century 
Lent by B. Altman &8 Company 
1g. Floral Carpet, Early XVII Century 
Lent by Kelekian 
20. Vase Carpet, First Third XVII Century 
Lent by B. Altman &§ Company 
21. Fragment of Arabesque Carpet, Early XVII Century 
Lent by Bernheimer Brothers 
22. Fragment of Vase Carpet, Early XVII Century 
Lent by Mr. B. M. Stainton 
23. Arabesque and Floral Carpet in Vase Tea rai Kurdestan, 
dated 1794 
Lent by Costikyan Te Compare. 
24. Arabesque Carpet, About 1800 
Lent by Vincent Robinson 


(E) SILK CARPETS FROM ISFAHAN COURT LOOMS (SO-CALLED POLO- 
NAISE CARPETS) 
25. So-called Polonaise Carpet, Early XVII Century 
Lent by Duveen Brothers | 
26. So-called Polonaise Carpet, Early XVII Century 
Lent by Parish Watson 


27. So-called Tapestry Polonaise Carpet, Second Quarter XVII Century 
Lent by Bernheimer Brothers 


PAGE 49 
1 
os 


5§ 


ba 


61 
61 
63 
65 
65 


67 


67 


69 


a 
73 


7s 


23. 


oo. 


36. 


G OUINP TSENG S 


So-called Tapestry Polonaise Carpet, Second Quarter XVII Century 
Lent by P. W. French & Company 


. So-called Tapestry Polonaise Carpet, Second Quarter XVII Century 


Lent by M. & R. Stora 


I] 
Cae eso ROMP THT BAS TERN CAUCASUS 


. Dragon Carpet, End XVI Century 


Lent by B. Altman & Company 


. Dragon Carpet, XVII Century 


Lent by Bernheimer Brothers 


. Dragon Carpet, First Half XVII Century 


Lent by Bachstitz 


. Carpet with Concentric Bands, XVII Century 


Lent by DeMotte 


. Copy of a Vase Carpet, Second Half XVII Century 


Lent by B. Altman & Company 


Carpet with Palmettes, End XVII or Early XVIII Century 
Lent by E. Beghian 


Carpet with Palmettes, Late XVII Century 
Lent by E. Beghtan 


III 
CARPETS FROM WESTERN ASIA MINOR 


. Turkish Court Carpet, Probably Broussa, End XVI Century 


Lent by S. Kent Costikyan 


. Carpet with Gold Stars, Oushak, Second Half XVI Century 


Lent by Bohler &§ Steinmeyer 


. So-called Holbein Carpet, Oushak, End XVI Century 


Lent by Kelektan 


. So-called Holbein Carpet, Oushak, Second Half XVI Century 


Lent by Bernheimer Brothers 


. So-called Holbein Carpet, Oushak, First Half XVI Century 


Lent by Bohler &§ Steinmeyer 


. Quatrefoil Medallion Carpet, Oushak, End XVI Century 


Lent by ‘fames F. Ballard 


PAGE 


dh 


ys) 


81 
83 
83 
85 
85 
87 


87 


gl 
G3 
93 
he 
97 


7] 


49: 


50. 


fi. 


(nA 
i) 


C4. 


C ONE EON UIE 


. Medallion Carpet, Oushak, End XVI Century 


Lent by S. Kent Costikyan 


. Medallion Carpet, Oushak, About 1600 


Lent by B. Altman & Company 


. Floral Carpet, First Half XVII Century 


Lent by Indjoudjian Brothers 


. Bergamo Carpet, First Half XVII Century 


Lent by Indjoudjian Brothers 


. Bergamo Carpet, XVII Century 


Lent by S. Kent Costikyan 


. Bergamo Carpet, End XVII Century 


Lent by B. Altman & Company 


Bergamo Carpet, Second Half XVII Century 
Lent by Bernheimer Brothers 


Prayer Carpet, Ladik, Early XVIII Century 
Lent by Bernheimer Brothers 


Ghiordes Mat, Early XVII Century . 
Lent by S. Kent Costikyan 


IV 
CARPET FROM EGYPT 


. Cairene Carpet, Early XVI Century 


Lent by DeMotte 


Na 
CARPETS FROM SPAIN 


53. Altar Carpet, XVI Century 


Lent by DeMotte 
So-called Salamanca Carpet, Middle XVI Century 
Lent by DeMotte 
VI 
MODERN CARPET 


. Silk Carpet, Contemporary Work 


Lent Anonymously 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


PAGE 99 


99 


Io! 


103 


Ke 


lI! 


114 


114 


116 


INTRODUCTION 


We live in an age of new and constantly expanding horizons, artistic as well as scien- 
tific. Our cultural world has been transformed as radically as the world of industry, 
By comparison with our present aesthetic resources the life of the preceding generation 
seems pathetically meager. They knew nothing of the tranquil, spiritual depths of 
Chinese painting, the exhilarating beauty of early armor, the tumultuous harmony of 
Indian sculpture, the virile glory of Gothic tapestries. A list of our recent discoveries 
in the realm of art from archaic Greek sculpture and early Chinese bronzes to the 
painting of Cézanne shows how rich have been the rewards of spiritual adventure. 

These new discoveries have not been primarily archeological; these precious “finds” 
were not concealed by physical debris but by the mental debris of dogmatism, com- 
placency and their companions ignorance and intolerance. It was because the older 
generation accepted formulas in place of direct contacts with the facts that they 
missed so much. They assumed that art was essentially painting or sculpture, that 
only a few media and a few approved styles should be taken seriously. But when the 
new age revolted against all such voluntary impoverishments of life and discovered 
that much that we had despised and rejected was in essence an infinitely precious 
heritage, and that art moves in many and devious ways her wonders to perform, a new 
cultural epoch was inaugurated. But there are yet more aesthetic worlds to conquer 
and for those uninitiated none more enchanting or rewarding than early Oriental carpets, 

It is not that Oriental carpets are unknown in America. The vast traffic in them 
and the numerous publications about them show that few decorative arts can count 
so many enthusiastic devotees. But the enthusiasm has not always been wise or tem- 
pered by a knowledge of other arts. The rugs that have sometimes been praised as 
worthy to rank beside paintings could be compared justly only to mediocre paintings, 
Because of the ubiquity of poor rugs and the exceeding difficulty of seeing really great 
examples, only a few people have direct personal knowledge of those supreme weavings 
that are worthy to be placed with any achievements in the realm of art. Fortunately 
a number of such pieces are now available to the public in New York, Boston, Washing- 
ton and Detroit and, for the moment, here in Chicago. 

Great rugs are their own best advocates. The full theoretical proof that carpets are 
to be taken seriously as works of art would involve a long treatise on the history of the, 
art as well as one on the nature of art itself. The most elaborate arguments, moreover, 
might be unconvincing where the simple witness of the carpets themselves would be 
final, provided always that we saw them as they really were without any of the darkly 
distorting preconceptions of the inferiority of the so-called minor or merely decorative 
arts. No verbal exposition of a work of art can ever serve as substitute for a direc 
and open minded observation of the object itself. 


EARLY RUGS AS WORKS 
OF ART. 


THE STUDY OF 
EARLY RUGS. 


OBSERVATION NOT 
NAMING THE FIRST 
ESSENTIAL. 


14 DN - TROD Gabon 


Whoever thus candidly examines any of these finest carpets will find in them the 
essential qualities which universally mark great works of art. There is the instant 
appeal to varied senses: velvety or rugged textures delight the sense of touch; pure and 
glowing colors enchant the eye; and an encyclopaedic variety of patterns that the eye 
seems actually to feel stimulates within us the sensations of smooth, complex, highly 
organized and rhythmic movement that radiates a tranquil energy through our whole 
being. There is, furthermore, in these patterns a direct and vivid appeal to feeling. 
Although abstract, unaided by literary associations or adventitious sentiment, their 
expressive power encompasses almost the whole range of the legitimate aesthetic 
emotions: opulence and majestic power, feminine charm, a vigor sometimes amounting 
to violence, reserve, elegance and heroic grandeur are all as possible to great carpets as 
to music or architecture, arts of design with which carpets have more than a super- 
ficial affiliation. Finally, in their clarity of conception, in the lucid and inevitably 
right relations of parts, the early carpets provide the mind and its basal demand for 
coherence with the profoundest satisfaction. 

Surely such works of art are worthy of serious study, for with them as with most arts 
appreciation waits on understanding. But there are many methods by which rugs 
may be studied and many ways of understanding them. The first step in rug knowl- 
edge is generally assumed to be naming. Whoever has a ready name and a precise 
period for every rug can acquire a great reputation for wisdom, and novices usually 
torture their minds, and often in the end kill their enthusiasm, by trying to learn the 
names of the vastly complicated varieties of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 
But recognition of types is not in itself knowledge. Appreciation of artistic quality 
is a much more fundamental and significant kind of knowledge. It is true that 
naming is an important aid to further study so that research in the field does and should 
concern itself primarily with problems of identification. But this does not mean that 
the question of identification is the first or even an essential step to aesthetic com- 
prehension. Many porters and shipping clerks as well as others of higher pretensions 
can call carpets by name but the carpets themselves remain to them aesthetic blanks. 
It is sufficient at first to recognize a few clearly distinguished classes and to know the 
outstanding characteristics of the main periods. Then using this simple classifica- 
tion as a background the carpets can be studied as works of art. Such knowledge is 
both happier and more useful than any knowledge of names and it is much more 
easily acquired. 

In studying a carpet as a work of art the first thing is to learn how to look at it 
correctly in order to discover what it really is. Surprising as it may seem, important 
carpets are rarely examined with the care that they deserve even by professional 
students. Because the eye can in a moment compass the entire surface of a rug it is 
readily assumed that it can be seen at a glance. But no worthy piece gives up its 
meaning so lightly. Its inner beauty is revealed only to a sympathetic and leisurely 
observation which knows how to read the pattern. The finer examples are often as 
elaborately composed as a symphony and as sensitively organized as a sonnet. The 
elements of the design are like notes in a melody or words of a poem: only as they are 


foNE ER © be Te ECR 15 


individually understood, interpreted and assembled is their meaning made plain. In 
order to see a rug, therefore, it is necessary to sense the quality of each component 
part, to feel the manifold relations of the parts to each other and to comprehend them 
all in a harmonious and significant unity. The great carpets are ready to declare their 
glory, and a wonderful glory it is, to those and to those only who will make this effort 
of attention. 

The beginning, then, of the understanding of any fine carpet is an analysis of the 
pattern. In the temporal arts such as music and poetry we are forced to follow the 
successive steps of the composition in a coherent sequence. In the same way we 
should follow the component elements in a rug design, naming them one by one. It 
is essential to learn to recognize the myriad forms of the arabesque, the lotus and the 
cloudband. No one has ever fully seen a rug, much less appreciated it, until he has 
thus identified the patterns, the colors and thei relationships and assigned definite 
terms to them all, or, if words be lacking, reproduced them by drawing or in precise 
memory images. For this essential work the brief analytical notes in the catalogue 
may help. They are dull enough taken by themselves but they are planned to assist 
in the examination of the rugs by steadying the eye, so easily confused by novelty and 
complication, and forcing it beyond the vagueness of the general impression to the 
specific content that underlies and creates that impression. 

Such a painstaking analysis not only sharpens the observation so that it discovers 
unexpected delights, but also, and this is perhaps even more important, it corrects the 
general tendency to an exaggerated emphasis on some one element in the complicated 
ensemble. The enthusiasm of rug devotees is often caught by some one striking 
aspect to the neglect of others equally important so that they quite misunderstand the 
carpet, ignore its finest qualities or are oblivious to serious defects. Color is so stimu- 
lating and satisfying, textures or the drawing of details can be so fascinating that we 
are all tempted to dally with these minor and partial enchantments and postpone or 
abandon the search for other values and the severer intellectual task of reading the 
design in its complete integrity. The responsive thrill to the dominant colors of a 
carpet is a step toward full appreciation but it is one step only. Genuine beauty does 
indeed flatter the lust of the eye but it also appeals to the whole mind and to its basal 
demand for coherence. 

A thorough analysis and integration of a fine carpet design, the full reading of the 
score as it were, is neither a quick nor an easy task, but whoever is willing to undertake 
this discipline before even one important carpet and take the trouble to expand by 

personal observation the necessarily fragmentary notes of the catalogue will find 
revealed a range of invention, a depth and a creative force and a quality of beauty that 
a thousand superficial glances would not have suggested. 

But even the accurate and detailed observation of a given carpet does not exhaust 
its possibilities. Each carpet had a use and was associated in an intimate and im- 
portant way with the life of the people who wove it. What it meant to them is inter- 
esting and significant. Each pattern has its history, every style its reason. To un- 
ravel all of these problems is an endlessly fascinating task and a difficult one for it calls 


ANALYSIS OF PATTERN 
ESSENTIAL TO ACCURATE 
OBSERVATION, 


IMPORTANCE OF BACK- 
GROUND KNOWLEDGE, 


RUG WEAVING AS A 


BRANCH OF MUHAM 


THE 
TION 


MADAN ART. 


PRIMARY DISTINC- 
OF HIGH AND LOW 
SCHOOL CARPETS, 


16 LN T-R:O. DU Gas E@ IN 


for a knowledge of the history, geography, ethnology, social customs and economic 
institutions of the rug producing countries that few can hope to acquire. But even a 
little background knowledge clarifies and enriches our observation and legitimately 
intensifies our appreciations. 

Oriental rug weaving is a branch of Muhammadan art, one aspect of a very richand 
vital culture. This culture has held sway at one time or another from China to Spain, 
from Vienna and the Caspian Sea to Abyssinia and India with outposts in Malaysia. 
Despite, however, this vast geographical and ethnical range it has maintained through- 
out an integral character that shows that it has been the expression of a common and 
vital force. It was this culture that produced the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal, the 
Arabian Nights and Omar Khayyam, which provided an essential element in Gothic 
art and was an important initiating factor in the Renaissance,(*) and still exercises a 
stimulating and moulding force on much current taste and practise. 

Rug weaving is only one of many crafts that were practised and practised well 
by Muhammadan peoples. For centuries they continued to produce masterpieces in 
glass, ivory, metals, faience and textiles to say nothing of architecture, calligraphy and 
manuscript ornamentation. Carpet making was probably the oldest of their arts 
excepting pottery and was perhaps closest to the life of the people, but it was only one 
expression of their aesthetic energy and in its highest achievements, especially in 
Persia, it stood in intimate dependence upon the other arts, celebrating themes com- 
mon to them all, a fact the neglect of which has caused many errors. It even borrowed 
freely from them. The architectural decorator, the faience maker, the brocade 
weaver, the calligraphist, the relieur and above all the illuminator and miniaturist 
all contributed to rug designs. All of the triumphs in carpet weaving have thus been 
the work of co-operative endeavor on the basis of a common ideal. 

As a branch of this Muhammadan culture, carpet weaving participates in a rich 
and ancient heritage of art forms gathered from almost the whole of Asia and from 
the Eastern Mediterranean as well. It is, indeed, primarily the fusing of these varied 
materials that gave to Muhammadan art its richness. Carpet weaving shares the 
genius of this Muhammadan culture for abstract forms that are at the same time 
expressive, its passion for perfect craftsmanship, its love of clarity, grace and elegance, 
its predominantly decorative rather than realistic character and its capacity to trans- 
form humble and common substances into precious works of art. It is this vast body 
of Muhammadan culture and the general conditions out of which it arose that are the 
sustaining forces in the art of carpet weaving and the principle reason for its greatest 
achievements. It is to this background that we must refer most unsolved carpet 
problems. 

The distinction between high and low school carpets, to appropriate Mumford’s 
useful designation, between, that is, the court carpets and the carpets of the common 
people is an essential preliminary to the understanding of the art, for each of these 
two basic classes must be judged by its own intentions and standards. The court 
carpets were woven to the order of monarchs and nobles who often supplied the 


(1) Cf. e.g. Gustave Soulier, Les Influences Orientales dans la Peinture Toscane, Paris, 1924. 


In comparing this color plate with the half-tone plate of the 
Von Tucher carpet, the two pieces may seem dissimilar but 
they are actually so close that Facoby considers them as probably 
from the same workshop and as designed by the same master. 
A detailed comparison goes a long way to substantiate this 
theory, although the two carpets are not as close as the Mackay 
piece and the piece in the-Schloss Museum which constitute 
a true patr. 





Vase Carpet No. 18 


Pee Ce DU Gale G) ON i] 


materials, met the high costs of production and to a large extent controlled the designs. 
They employed for the designing artists attached to the court who well understood 
their lords’ tastes and brought to the work highly sophisticated professional skill. 
They were familiar, moreover, with the styles current at rival courts so that these 
high school carpets are somewhat international, so international that one may for a 
moment be puzzled to distinguish between a carpet woven in Constantinople for the 
Sultan, Tabriz for the Shah or Lahore for the Emperor of India. It is these court 
weavings that touch the highest summit of the art. At their best they exhibit not only 
a superlative technical mastery but also an exhilarating quality of sheer loveliness 
combined with a deep and moving power that rank them among man’s highest aesthe- 
tic achievements. 

The rugs of the common folk, on the other hand, the low school rugs, were woven 
for personal use by both townspeople and nomads. Sometimes, especially in later 
years, the patterns are dim derivatives from the royal weavings but more often, 
particularly with the nomads, they are plain and forthright, consisting of simple 
floral and geometrical motives in a few colors. Though low school patterns pass 
from one region to another, this interchange never obliterates the decided local 
character of the designs. Low school rugs smack of the soil. They have their roots 
in the open country, far back among the wandering tribes of central Asia whence the 
craft of knotted weaving probably came. These rugs do not vie with court productions 
any more than the black tent of the nomad or the adobe house of the townsman vie 
with the palace of a Shah or a Sultan, but they are beautiful nevertheless. Indeed 
they have a tang and an individuality that we sometimes miss in the more elaborate 
and self conscious weavings of the court. The best of them show a naive and primi- 
tive directness until well into the nineteenth century. The artistic merit of the 
fine examples has not been sufficiently recognized or exploited. 

Though the two classes of high and low school rugs are thus sharply divided, 
underlying this division is a common character that is the expression of the part all 
carpets played in the life of the peoples that produced them. In the decoration of 
every interior in these lands the carpet was and is the central feature. Indeed the 
carpet occupies in the Persian home almost the same place that the tokonoma does 
in the Japanese. Thomas Herbert who travelled in the Near East in the seventeenth 
century wrote: “In their houses they have little furniture or household stuff except 
it be their carpets and some copper works . . . . They eat on the ground, sitting on 
carpets cross legged as doe tailers. There is no man so simple but he sitteth on a carpet 
better or worse, and the whole house or roome wherein he sitteth 1s wholly covered 
’ with carpets.’’(?) Shah and shepherd alike regarded the carpet as his most precious 
possession. 


Almost every function of life was ornamented and dignified by carpets. They | 


served for welcoming the guest, for the ceremonies of marriage or death, for prayer, 
for penance, as gift to monarch, mosque or foreign ambassador, as war indemnity or 
war booty and for the celebration of great public occasions. When in 1923 in com- 


(2) Thomas Herbert, Relation of Some Yeares Travaile etc. London, 1634. 


PLACE OF THE CARPET 
IN THE LIFE OF 
ORIENTAL PEOPLES, 


THE MAIN TYPES 
PERSIAN, 


18 DNGTR GD UbGsl ala 


memoration of the Queen’s jubilee all Amsterdam was bedecked with rugs it was but 
an echo of Venetian fetes especially well depicted by Carpaccio and these in turn were 
echoes of the greater Oriental festivities marking notable occasions made gorgeous by 
a lavish display of carpets. Only last month at the accession of Reza Khan to the 
throne of Persia, marking a renaissance in the life of the country, the whole of the 
capital city, it 1s said, took on the appearance of a great carpet bazaar. 

Beautiful carpets have been woven in China, Central Asia, India, the Caucasus, 
Egypt and Spain, but by the common consent of all qualified observers Persian carpets. 
outrank all others. In fact Persian genius was responsible for much of the glory of all 
Muhammadan art and the art of rug weaving of the high school type was essentially 
a creation of Persian weavers, painters and designers. The carpets of the Turkish and 
Indian courts were directly derived from Persian models, Persian weavers introducing 
the art to the Turks as prisoners of war and to the Indians as highly paid and honored. 
masters. 

Persian carpet designs at their best are marked by intellectual qualities that no. 
other carpets ever approach. Although they are often very complicated and of a 
subtlety that taxes our understanding, nevertheless they are rational and well or- 
ganized. A definite and reasonable scheme always dominates the symphonic wealth 
and splendor of the greatest of them. Most impressive is the ability of the Persian 
designers to arrange a series of orders of decoration. Each order in these complex 
compositions has its individual quality. Each moves in a different dimension with a 
different rhythm and at a different rate of speed. Each has quite different values and 
functions. Each can be taken by itself and so taken is complete and beautiful. In 
combining, moreover, they alternately collide or blend and remain aloof. Yet despite 
this independence of the elements and this intricacy of their relations they are held 
well in hand and made to march decorously together “confederate to one golden end, 
Beauty.” The fine taste and clear headedness that the Persians show in keeping each 
order of design thus cleanly separate and true to its own character throughout, the 
control with which they deal with the new qualities that, not explicit in the designs. 
separately, are created by their interrelations and the way in which all factors are 
coordinated and all tensions resolved would be notable in any form of thinking or 
artistic creation. These schemes of significant relations are entitled to rank with 
musical thought and feeling and even in some measure with mathematical insight. 

Equally remarkable with this rational control is the skill with which the scheme 
for the control is kept from being too obtrusive. The severity of the logic is always 
gracefully veiled. The authority of the scheme, moreover, rests lightly on the minor: 
parts permitting them a delightful freedom. Some details have the effect of being 
even carelessly placed though actually in a fine carpet no smallest feature is unplanned. 

The general composition of these carpets usually follows that of the book covers 
or of the beautiful mosque doors. The material of the designs is largely naturalistic 
without being realistic. Many of the blossoms and trees that appear in carpets can 
be identified, others are the long creation of centuries of refinement and imagination 
working on ancient themes like the lotus and its decorative derivatives, the arabesque: 


INTRODUCTION 19 


and its myriad lovely forms or the difficult Chinese cloud bands. In the treatment of 
animals and personnages the early carpets are vivid and masterful, but always in 
sixteenth century work the instinct of the true decorator, rarely misled by technical 
virtuosity, kept the illustrative elements within bounds. 

While the colors of the best Persian carpets are indeed lovely and while a few of 
them touch an intense and exhilarating fortissimo chord, for the most part in the great 
period they are not dashing or bold. Sobriety and reserve, marks of aristocracy which 
they inherited from the noble Sassanian brocades and which are traditional virtues 
among the Persians even today, were the ideals rather than the intensity and excite- 
ment that mark nomadic rugs and the carpets of some neighboring peoples. Later, 
as luxury and self consciousness increased and intellectual energy declined, the colors 
were multiplied and somewhat intensified. 

In combining colors the Persians were supreme. Any of their creations from the 
sixteenth to the seventeenth century exhibits an ingenuity of color invention anda 
sympathy of understanding that cannot even be indicated in a general discussion.(*) 
No one who studies these carpets with an interest in color harmonies can refrain from 
astonishment and admiration. 

Turkish carpets, although inspired by Persian models are on the whole of a 
different order. There is a simplicity and straightforwardness in the Turkish 
character and a love of quiet luxury that soon expressed themselves in carpet designs. 
The Turk is no thinker, and the intricate organization, the high nervous intensity 
and the poetic suggestiveness of Persian designs are usually beyond his taste. He 
prefers richness and repose and, therefore, chooses comparatively simple designs 
that are serene, though they often express a certain grandeur and quiet force. To 
this there are two exceptions: the Broussa carpets which surpass even the Persian 
in delicacy and refinement, though even they are quite simple in scheme; and a few 
of the early Oushaks done under Persian guidance, which are marvels of intricate 
patterning. 

Instead of the twelve or fourteen tones of sixteenth century Persian carpets 
or the twenty or more of the so-called Polonaise carpets of the seventeenth century, we 
find the Turkish designers often content with three or four. But though the colors 
are few, they are extraordinarily rich and deep. The intense ruby panels of some 
of the early Oushaks or the gold and crimson of some of the later pieces can scarcely 
be matched in the whole history of textile ornamentation. 

The motives also, saving those of the Broussa carpets, are broad and relatively 
simple. Great star forms, heavily conventionalized flower figures, rather stately, 
high formalized arabesques and somewhat clumsy cloud bands replace the swift, 
lively movements, the sweeping spirals and fluttering ribands of the Persian carpets. 
The technique is correspondingly broad also. With the exception of a few very 
elegant Broussa carpets and a few of the prayer rugs of the eighteenth century which 
sometimes attained an almost meaningless finesse, the mark of a slackening power, 
Turkish weaving is coarser and the pile thicker than in Persian work. 


(3) Karl Hopf of Stuttgart will soon bring out a volume on carpets containing some very careful studies of color 
schemes and the various devices for color blending and compensation. 


TURKISH. 


CAUCASUS. 


CLASSIFICATION OF 
CARPETS BY PERIOD. 


20 IN‘T RODUCTELOWN 


The Caucasus has been shockingly neglected in carpet literature. There are 
famous treatises on carpets that do not even mention this important region. While 
the carpets of Persia and Turkey were becoming internationalized through the co- 
operation of highly sophisticated artists, the provincial courts of the Caucasus held 
true to their original sources of inspiration and developed a style of severity and 
monumental grandeur. Especially in the region of Shemaka, Baku and Kuba, the 
weavers produced a group of carpets that attained a heroic force that marks them 
quite apart in the history of the art. The designs of this type combine floral and 
animal features from the Persian court carpets with dragons and other devices of 
Chinese origin. These are assimilated to the basic nomadic patterns, the integrity 
of the local style being decisively maintained. The real significance of these carpets 
was long concealed by the fantastic attribution of them to Armenia. Actually, 
they are the true offspring of the grandeur of the Caucasus mountains and the virility 
of the culture there developed. The best of these carpets are very rich and beautiful. 

The drawing of Caucasus carpets is marked by firm and hard contours, rigid 
angularity, jagged serrations and flatness and breadth. In some of the later pieces a 
jewel-like elegance suggesting lapidarian work is reached, but while this is very 
charming, it is generally achieved at the expense of the impressiveness of the design. 
Whoever has any feeling for the primitive quality in art, for a flavor of the heroic age, 
must find the greater Caucasus weavings of stirring beauty. 

The colors of Caucasus carpets are less deep and rich than those of the Turkish 
pieces, and they lack the sobriety and subtlety of the Persian work. But they have 
a directness, a force of contrast and a truly individual character that well suit the 
patterns. 

Quite as important as this classification by national or racial types is, the classifi- 
cation by periods. A sufficient number of dated pieces exists to give us a clue to the 
characteristics of the successive epochs, and further confirmation comes from related 
faience and manuscripts that are also dated. Using these as a guide the patterns 
themselves provide the clue to age. For designs are not inert elements like bricks in 
a building. Even such an apparently standardized art as calligraphy is in constant 
flux. There are minute changes in the forms of letters, clear only to the acute eye, 
but sufficiently clear to a genius like Dr. Flury of Basle to enable him, with the help 
of countless patient measurements, to date writing from the seventh to the fourteenth 
century to within twenty-five years. Similarly in rug patterns, arabesques, cloud 
bands, spiral tendrils, the structure of a lotus, the width of a guard stripe, the placing 
of a medallion, the serrations of a palmette and the way in which the motives are 
combined are all indications of the period. Each feature of the pattern has a definite 
life history. Each changes from generation to generation, often within a single 
decade. One never knows any given pattern until he can trace its full story. 

These changes reflect faithfully the changing social and national life. The art 
is stimulated by a favorable environment, by wealth, leisure, national pride, the 
contagious energy and air of easy achievement that marks all great cultural periods, 
and it is just as quickly corrupted and debased by disorganization, poverty, discontent 


Ne R ODN Gh ON 21 


or the substitution of commercial for artistic ideals. These responses to economic 
and social environment are not haphazard. They follow laws which in varying 
degrees control the evolution of design everywhere and which are based in turn upon 
psychological laws. These laws, operating within the art itself, are at work even 
when the environmental forces are stationary or indifferent. The difficult work of 
proving and classifying these changes 1s proceeding slowly, for it calls for thousands of 
detailed drawings. When it is reasonably complete we shall have not only material 
for the closer dating of carpets, but some revealing generalizations applicable to the 
whole psychology of art creation. 

The principal stages in the evolution of the art of rug weaving are generally 
designated by centuries or portions of them. But the sophomoric idea that a bell is 
rung and a page turned every hundred years is not in good favor with historians. 
The reigns of important monarchs constitute a sounder division, for when a monarch 
had sufficient power and taste to impose his own character on contemporary art 
something like an epoch was created. Ina brief discussion, however, the classifica- 
tion by centuries is more convenient. 

A few fifteenth century carpets still survive, large ones from Spain, smaller ones 
from Asia Minor and a few precious fragments from Persia. A good case can be made 
for placing some of the Northwest Persian Medallion carpets such as Numbers 1 and 2 
at the end of the fifteenth century but this dating has yet to be proved. All of the 
fifteenth century carpets are marked by great strength and simplicity and where they 
are at all intricate as in the border of the piece in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs(¢) or 
in the field of the Parish Watson piece the patterns are as firm as if of pierced metal. 
Another marked characteristic is the noble spacing of the principle designs and the 
simplicity of the color schemes. 

With the reviving naturalism of Persian art, which owed a great deal to Bizhad 
and his followers, the court carpets began to take on a more florid and realistic style 
so that by the first quarter of the sixteenth century Persian carpets have almost the 
freedom and resource of painting. Despite, however, the tumultuous flow of motion 
that energizes the new style the earlier sixteenth century carpets still maintain a certain 
reserve and tranquillity which is essentially due to the fine spacing, the coordination 
of design and the accurate rendering of the least detail. The Turkish and Caucasus 
carpets of the sixteenth century, while lacking the variety of the Persian carpets, 
share with them the same qualities of firmness and dignity. All of these sixteenth 
century carpets have an air of adequacy and assurance that is the mark of a young 
and vital art nearing itscrest. The specific marks of sixteenth as against seventeenth 
century weaving are best discussed in descriptions of individual rugs. 


As wealth and luxury developed in all of the rug weaving countries, as courts be- 
came more ambitious and self-conscious and love of display began to displace the. 


humble passion for perfection, nearly all of the great qualities of sixteenth century 
weaving became corrupted. In most of the seventeenth century carpets repetition and 


(4) This superb piece will be published soon in a catalogue of the Muhammadan Art in the Museum. An equally 
important piece in the possession of Dr. Sarre will appear in the second volume of the Vienna Carpet Book (Cf. 


Bibliography). 


XV CENTURY. 


XVI CENTURY. 


XVIII CENTURY. 


WRONG ASSUMPTIONS 
THAT CONCEAL TRUE 
CHARACTER OF EARLY 

RUGS, 


a0 DNR O Dien 


habit have taken the place of invention and hard thinking, carelessness and guess 
work of scrupulous exactness and careful measurements; the finely coordinated 
designs have become merged and confused; the patterns have grown thick, the origi- 
nal character being quite forgotten; the foregrounds and backgrounds have been 
mixed; the materials have been cheapened and the weaving has become coarse and 
loose. All of this is especially true of carpets destined for the European market. In- 
deed the European demand was one of the prime factors in the deterioration of the art. 

But while Turkish and Caucasus carpets continued to decline in the seventeenth 
century, the best work in Persia made for the local courts and nobles continued to main- 
tain to some degree the old standards. In technique and materials some of the later 
carpets leave nothing to be desired. Borrowing more and more from the brocade 
weaver and the painter they achieved naturalistic effects of great charm. Some of the 
work of the second half of the seventeenth century such as the rugs woven for the Mau- 
soleum of Shah Abbas IT at Kum is of extraordinary and dazzling loveliness.(*) None 
the less the nobility and grandeur of the earlier compositions are wanting. 

By the eighteenth century most of the original motives had been lost or stereo- 
typed. The rapid and elegant movements, the intricately flowing lines are now 
arrested. The new forms are not without beauty but it is a beauty of a lesser order. 
Some of the Herat, Joshagan, Kerman and Shiraz rugs of the eighteenth century have 
considerable merit. Many of them are beautiful in tone, firm and clear in drawing, 
of delightful texture and of real if not inspired decorative charm. But excellent as 
some of them are, they have declined a long way from the former estate, and only by 
a generous sympathy can they be seen as important works of art. 

In order really to appreciate carpets it is essential to avoid a number of assump- 
tions, unfortunately common, which, born in ignorance and nourished in sentimen- 
tality, make it difficult to see the carpets as they truly are. Some of these fallacies 
are aesthetic, others intellectual. Among the former the worst offender, and the one 
which does most to hinder the full enjoyment of the best carpets, is the idea that the 
sure mark of precious merit in an antique textile is dull, weak and confused colors and 
general shabbiness. It cannot be too often or too emphatically affirmed that all great 
art is marked by a spirit of unquenchable youth and that purity and freshness, clarity 
and depth of color are far more admirable and truly delightful than the vague and 
musty tones which are generally the product of poor dyes and long accumulated dirt. 
Much ordinary soot and grease has been affectionately coddled under the name of 
“patina,” and “atmosphere” is quite often nothing but an obnoxious accumulation 
which hides the original glories of the carpet. It is the purity and strength of the colors 
that are the source of permanent charm, the fluctuating glow that comes from numer- 
ous slight tonal changes, the lustre that comes from the combination of fine dyes and 
fine materials and above all the balance, harmony and distribution of colors which is 
the work of genius, patience and a passion for perfection. 

Another fallacy of a different kind, but equally poisonous, is that the most 
interesting and important thing about a carpet is the symbolic meaning of the patterns. 


(®) See the Art Bulletin for April, 1926, for color plates of some of these pieces. 


INTRODUCTION 23 


A rug is, on this theory, essentially a document written in strange charactry from which 
the initiated can read off the life history of the weaver, the fortunes of his tribe, their 
beliefs and customs. All such necromancy is to be classed with the “Language of 
Flowers” and the “Meaning of Jewels.’”’ It belongs to the age of secret fraternities 
and all the nonsense that sprang up in America in the 1840’s as our echo of continental 
philosophic and literary romanticism. If we are going to treat a carpet as a sort of 
glorified cross word puzzle, in the same class with passwords, grips and talismans, 
its beauty will never be disclosed. It will not abide such an indignity. Such a 
point of view is not only contrary to the facts but offends the spirit of art and is the 
confession of an essential philistinism. The creation of beauty of a high order is an 
intrinsic value, self justifying. At least, so thought the weavers of the great carpets; 
for they used every kind of device that came to hand whatever its original source or 
meaning provided only that it be beautiful or capable of an interesting treatment. 
So eager were these designers for material they did not hesitate to borrow from the 
idolatrous and unclean generations with whom they came in contact: cloud bands 
and other tchi forms from China; geometrical patterns from Turkish nomads; rinceau 
from Greece; animal forms from Siberia, Byzantium and Egypt; Assyrian sun disks 
and Hebrew stars as well as Buddhist niches from India. From every available 
country, race and religion they took patterns ‘“‘whose simple destiny was but to be 
beautiful.” They assembled them as notes in a song, not as hieroglyphics in a code. 

Originally, no doubt, many of these patterns had specific meanings as they do 
even today among the Chinese weavers. Symbolism appears early in the history of 
man, and at the dawn of civilization plays an important réle though, later, 1t becomes 
the occupation of vacant minds or often a self protective device of priestly classes. 
But the original meanings of rug patterns have for the most part been quite lost, 
especially to the weavers themselves. The history of patterns which now attracts 
scholars is the story of their evolution and their relations to other patterns. Such 
knowledge adds legitimately to their interest and charm, it informs us of their original 
aesthetic intention, reveals their inward character and gives us standards for judging 
them. What truth and value there is in the theory of symbolism will ultimately be 
made clear by professional studies. Amateurish speculations are apt to distort and 
conceal the real nature of rug designing. 

One further precaution is necessary if we are really to understand fine carpets. 
We must be clear about our point of view for what we see in them depends upon what 
we want and expect them to be. They may be regarded as primarily works of art, 
but usually, they have an attractive utility value also. It is possible but dangerous 
to serve two masters in such matters. Appraisals are often further complicated, 
moreover, by considerations of historical interest, rarity and price. All of these points 


of view are legitimate, they can be coordinated and each given its proper due, but | 


they do not adjust themselves automatically and if left ambiguous and shifting, 
destroy sound judgment. 
It is partly the failure to think this problem through that has so often frustrated 


collectors.(*) For although there have been many collectors in America and although 


(®) These problems were dealt with in a series of articles: Value in Oriental Rugs by Arthur Upham Pope, in Arts 
and Decoration, June, August, October, 1922. 


CONFUSIONS RESULTING 
FROM VARIOUS POINTS 
OF VIEW. 


THE PROBLEM AND 
OPPORTUNITY OF THE 
COLLECTOR. 


THE PROBLEM OF 
PRECISE 
IDENTIFICATION. 


24 DNV ER OCD Ga ON, 


more fine pieces are owned privately here than abroad, the ideal collection has not 
yet been made either here or there. Yerkes succeeded probably better than anyone 
else. The quality of his collection has not been equalled in modern times, but even 
in this remarkable collection standards were not maintained consistently, and there 
were serious lacunae. Despite other notable achievements by Williams, MclIlhenny, 
Ballard and Myers for which all must be grateful, no one has yet brought to carpet 
collecting the extraordinary combination of qualities that has distinguished the work 
of Mr. Eumorfopoulos in the field of Chinese art: wide and accurate knowledge, bold 
and impeccable taste, a consistent and unflinching insistence on the priority of the 
highest quality of beauty, the sense for system and the will to labor and sacrifice. 
Yet such a collector is especially needed in this field. Irreplaceable carpets are 
constantly being destroyed through unthinking use. There is no further source of 
supply. There are none in private possession in the Orient, practically all the mosques | 
save Kerbela and Kum were long ago robbed of their treasures, and those that are 
left will stay. No archaeological work can possibly uncover important carpets. 
Deterred by cost or indifferent through ignorance our Museums, saving for four or 
five notable exceptions, are doing nothing toward the acquisition of Carpets ieee 
already too late to secure a full record of this, the most important of all textile arts, 
an art full of instruction and inspiration for students and artists, an art eloquently 
revealing a rich and powerful culture, an art full of infinite possibilities of delight. 
But private collectors, working individually or with Museums, still have here a brief 
opportunity that is perhaps not quite equalled in any other field of art. 


It is only after one has studied early carpets as works of art and in relation to 
the various phases of their background that the arduous and still unsettled problems 
of exact identification can be profitably undertaken. The scholar wants to know just 
when and where a carpet was woven; if possible, for whom and under what circum- 
stances. If it is obviously the work of a special designer he wants to know who he 
was or, at least, to what school he belonged. But the difficulties are formidable and 
discouraging. The history of early carpets has not yet been written and perhaps 
cannot be for years. The absence or inaccessibility of contemporary records is a 
serious handicap. We still have to be content in most cases to indicate the general 
region from which an early rug comes, and it is only recently that we have been able 
to say confidently within thirty or forty years of the date of the weaving, and that not 
always. Of only two kinds of early Persian carpets can we say with anything ap- 
proaching surety just where they were woven. The so-called Vase carpets, the true 
Shah Abbas palace carpets, were woven in Joshaghan Ghali and itsimmediate environs, 
located about seventy-three miles northeast of Isfahan, and perhaps, the so-called 
Polonaise carpets also were woven there.(?) The so-called “Tspahan”’ carpets, usually 
with great palmettes and scrolling vines on a wine red ground, were woven in Herat 


(7) The evidence for this attribution will be published in detail in the forthcoming monograph on the Vase carpet 
belonging to Mrs. Edith Rockefeller McCormick (No. 16). A discussion of the so-called Polonaise carpets will 
be given in an article on the Carpets in the Mausoleum of Shah Abbas II at Kum which will appear in the Art 
Bulletin, N.Y. A preliminary announcement of some of this evidence was given in the Kunstchronik for July, 1925. 


INTRODUCTION ons 


as Dr. Martin has indicated.(8) Probably the very fine red silk carpets such as those 
in the Altman Collection and the piece lent by Mr. Edsel Ford to the Detroit Institute 
of Art were woven at Kashan, while the region of Karabagh produced some of the 
early Medallion carpets such as Numbers 1 and 2 and Tabriz, perhaps, some of the 
animal carpets such as Number 3. The Dragon carpets, through a preposterous 
comedy of errors long knownas Armenian(°) are from the region of the Eastern Caucasus. 
The only early Turkish carpets satisfactorily identified come from Broussa, Oushak 
and Bergamo, although we know from contemporary documents that carpets were 
woven also at Konia, Sivas and the region of Smyrna among other places. Thanks to 
Dr. Sarre’s able researches(!°) we now know that the so-called Damascus carpets of 
geometrical design were woven in Cairo. Of the various Spanish carpets none have 
yet been recognized except the yellow and blue rugs that come from Alcaraz. 

The names of three great designers or master weavers are now known to us: 
Ghiyas ed-Din Djami (1521) who was responsible for the great medallion animal 
carpet that belonged to Queen Margharita;(") Maksoud of Kashan (1539) who did 
the Ardebil Mosque carpet (No. 6) and Ne‘amat‘ullah of Joshagan (1762) who did 
the carpets in the Mosque of Kum. The pair of tree and animal carpets, one of which 
belongs to the Kaiser Friederich Museum and the other of which is in the collection 
of Mr. Clarence Mackay, and the pair of animal carpets, one of which is in the Metro- 
- politan Museum and the other in the collection of Dr. Sarre, are in the style of Sultan 
Muhammad, one of the greatest of miniature painters. (1) 

These identifications of ten or a dozen types and of three individual masters is 
the meagre result of thirty years of scholarship. The provenance of about fifty other 
types remains in the realm of conjecture. It is true that we have evidence for some 
further attributions but they are still too fragmentary and controversial to be of 
interest in a general catalogue. 

For the identification of rugs the pattern is often a quite uncertain guide. There 
was too much borrowing and trading about of designs, too much special pattern draw- 
ing by court artists, for the general appearance of a carpet to reveal much more than 
the country and period in which it was made, always excepting a few highly individual 
types like the Herats, Kashans and Vase carpets. In difficult and ambiguous cases 
the minor details of the weaving technique may be important evidence. It is not yet 
clear how far these technical details can help us, but the completion of analyses of all 
the early carpets on which several scholars are at work will at least assist in the final 
classification and attributions. Brief notes on the weaving of each piece have therefore 
been included in this catalogue for the sake of record, for the use of scholars working 
(8) F. R. Martin, A History of Oriental Carpets Before 1800, p. 69. 


(9) Arthur Upham Pope, The Myth of the Armenian Dragon Carpets, in Jahrbuch der Asiatischer Kunst, 1925 and 
Heinrich Jacoby, Eine Sammlung Orientalischer Teppiche, Berlin, 1923 s. 84 et seq. 

(1) F, Sarre, Die gyptische herkunft der sogennante Damaskus-teppiche, Zeitschrift fiir Bildende Kunst, April, 1926, 
and also Die agyptischen teppiche, Jahrbuch der Asiatische Kunst, 1924, s. 19. A summary of Dr. Sarre’s 
argument together with some new evidence will be published by the writer in the International Studio for April, 1926, 
and a more technical article in Zeitschrift fiir Bildende Kunst a little later. 

(41) Cf. A Dated Animal Carpet in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum by the writer in Dedalo for April, 1926. 


(2) Dr. E. Kuehnel of the Kaiser Friederich Museum independently came to this same conclusion. 


IS RUG WEAVING AS A 
FINE ART PERMANENTLY 
LosT? 


26 DNC ©.D UG Gain Oay 


on this problem and also to help establish the principle that no important carpets 
should be published without this information. (*) 

Rug weaving is often spoken of as if it were a hopelessly ost art and any thought- 
ful comparison of the best modern work with that of the early periods would seem to 
warrant a pessimistic view. But revival is not impossible and something like the old 
standards are attainable if American taste and purchasing power will support efforts 
now being made in Persia. Of skill in the actual weaving there is abundance fully 
equal to that of the sixteenth century. The new dyes are varied and beautiful even if 
not as lustrous and as “kind” to the wool as the older dyes and some of the secrets of 
the latter are fortunately being slowly rediscovered. The finest materials are still 
available for a price and a little waiting. There remains the problem of design which 
might at first be met by the cooperation of European trained artists thoroughly 
grounded in all the characteristic arts of the Near East. Starting with a close depend- 
ance on the old models, with a little sympathetic guidance and practical support, the 
weavers of Persia could perhaps in time produce rugs worthy of the old Shahs. No 
better evidence of such possibilities could be asked for than the example of modern 
weaving, Number 55. Although the conjunction of all the necessary favoring con- 
ditions is difficult, perhaps improbable, the result is worth working for. 

Nor if weaving can be really revived will it be necessary to wait centuries for the 
rugs to become beautiful. Mere age as a factor in creating the beauty of carpets has 
been absurdly exaggerated. A detailed analysis of the color changes in many sixteenth 
century carpets shows that in the best of them modification has been exceedingly 
slight. Many colors have not perceptibly changed at all. The beauty of old carpets 
is no accident of time and exposure. It is rather the deliberate creation of hard work- 
ing, thoughtful, gifted men who knew what they were doing. Carpets have lost more 
through age than they have ever gained, shocking as this may be to our incorrigible 
sentimentalists who prefer to explain away important human achievements as acci- 
dents of nature. Since human capacity is the essential factor in the beauty of rugs 
it is not impossible that it can be recaptured. In a few years we shall know whether 
or not this hope rests upon the solid substance of fact. 


(8) For a clear and adequate account of the technique of weaving, see (Tatersall) Notes on Carpet Knotting and 
Weaving, Victoria and Albert Museum. Useful information will also be found in W. A. Hawley, Oriental Rugs, p. 45 
et seq. 


It 
PERSIAN CARPETS 


om 


CARPETS FROM NORTHWEST PERSIA 
eg 


Tuer is a small group of a dozen or fifteen rather austerely planned but very beautiful 
Medallion carpets, which by common consent have been ascribed to Northwest Persia. 
The best of them are believed to have been woven at the very beginning of the sixteenth 
century. Their freedom from Chinese influence, which was early dominant at the Court 
of Shah Ismail (1499-1524), and the Byzantine quality of the arabesques, as well as a 
certain archaic grandeur and simplicity, have all been thought to indicate an early 
dating. It is conceivable, however, that these characteristics may be due to a lagging 
provincialism of some looms not in close communication with the court, although these 
carpets are sophisticated enough to have been woven for important patrons. Some, 
like the Buquoy piece(**) and the magnificent one in the Royal Palace at Stock- 
holm, (#5) are enriched with animal and hunting scenes of such technically perfect draw- 
ing that they must have been designed by court painters. Affiliations with modern 
types, seem to point at least, to Karabagh or Shusha as the probable origin of most of 
these pieces, although the more elegant and pictorial may have been woven at Tabriz 
or some nearby town. Three important pieces of this type are in the Metropolitan 
Museum, two of a very interesting color in the Ballard collection, and one very finely 
planned in the Altman collection. One with a beautiful turquoise tone is owned by 
Mrs. W. H. Crocker of San Francisco. The few remaining pieces are in foreign museums 
and private collections. 


NORTHWEST PERSIA, END XV OR OPENING XVI CENTURY 
MEDALLION CARPET 

The intricate field is dominated by a triple concentric medallion; the innermost is saffron 
with radial stems and blossoms in red and green, the intermediate is crimson with a circlet 
of lotus blossoms in buff and celadon green, the outer is moss green with a similar circlet of 
larger lotus flowers. The corners, in saffron and celadon, are of similar but not identical 
design. The field of deep crimson is covered with a staccato network of firm, angular stems 
and blossoms in ivory and blue, over which is laid in wide spirals half arabesques of ex- 
quisite early design, some in saffron, some in green. The bar of the medallion 1s in saffron 
and red; the pendant escutcheon in turquoise with lotus and peony blossoms in saffron, 
white and crimson. 


(44) Cf. Meisterwerke Muhammadanische Kunst, Tafel 46. 
(45) Cf. Martin, op. cit., Plates IV and V. 








on Carpet 


Medalli 


PLATE 1 


GATALOGUE 29 


The border shows a scarlet ground almost wholly covered by wide-banded arabesques, 
each ornamented by a lotus and a pair of confronted birds. The arabesques enclose rigid 
palmettes in green and saffron, with short ribbon-like bands in turquoise and saffron con- 
necting the bases and passing behind the tips. The saffron guard stripes carry simple 
undulating vines and blossoms in red and blue. 


Pile, wool; warp, white cotton; weft, linen, 3 after each row of knots. Red 
end seluage. Knot, Turkish, 15 vertical, 13 horizontal, 195 to the square inch. 


This carpet, perhaps the earliest whole Persian carpet yet found, belongs to the 
small but famous group of Northwest Persia medallion carpets, but its dominant color 
scheme of gold, green and crimson is unique, and the intricate decoration of the main 
field is also unprecedented. Its mosaic jewel-like quality, both in color and scale, 
form an admirable contrast to the austere central medallion. 

The archaic simplicity of the drawing, the wide spacing of the central elements, 
the architectural rigidity of the border, all bespeak early work. A further and more 
specific evidence that the style is really early is to be found in the great medallion and 
animal carpet recently loaned to the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum in Milan by the Queen 
Mother Margharita, which carries the earliest date yet foundon any carpet—1521.("*) 
This carpet gives every evidence of being considerably earlier than the Milan piece. 


NORTHWEST PERSIA, BEGINNING XVI CENTURY 
MEDALLION. CARPET 


The field is a greenish blue, varying from true green almost to turquoise. It 1s dominated 
by a complex star medallion in pure red with inlet interstices of pale fawn. At the center of 
the medallion is a beautiful lobed star. There are bar pendants in white and escutcheons tn 
crimson. The ornamentation of these medallion pendants consists of various forms of 
geometrically drawn lotus flowers vigorously arranged with rather rigid branching foliage. 
The field is decorated with various combinations of arabesques on angular spiral stems, 
which interlace to form a variety of beautiful patterns. The principal colors are vartous 
shades of green, saffron, terra cotta, dark brown, and deep and pale blue. 

The border consists of interweaving broad-banded arabesques in gold, wine red, tur- 
quoise blue and ivory. 


Pile, wool; warp, 4-ply cotton; weft, 3-ply wool, 2 after each row of knots; 
knot, Turkish. ; 


This is one of the most famous and beautiful carpets of this type. The color com- 
binations are unusual and delightful. The powerfully constructed medallion, the clear 


and rugged drawing of the principal ornaments and the slow, firm rhythm of the border | 


endow the rug with exceptional strength, which is enhanced and relieved by the delicate 
starry quality of the tiny scrolls and the little flecks of white. The medallion has earlier 
antecedents both in Rhages pottery (!’) and in late Sassanian brocades, and indeed, as 
early as Achamenian and Assyrian times. This form was taken over into some of the 
(36) See Footnote No. 11. 


(7) Cf. e.g. a Rhages bowl in the collection of Parish Watson illustrated, Arthur Upham Pope, Oriental Rugs as Fine 
Art, International Studio December, 1922; and also for a similar bowl R. M. Riefstahl, The Parish Watson Col- 
lection of Muhammadan Potteries, No. 24, p. 133. 


L, 16 ft. 74 In. 
w. 7 ft, 2 in. 
Lent by 
Parish Watson. 


L, ta ft. Lo ine 
WwarGntte 

Lent by 

Bernheimer Brothers. 





on Carpet 


il of Medalli 


Dela 


PLATE 


ooGN We aNd bd OME (teh 31 


early Asia Minor carpets (Cf. No. 38), such as the Oushaks, and is really the parent of 
the star forms on such carpets as the little Bergamo No. 47. 


NORTHWEST PERSIA, BEGINNING XVI CENTURY 
MEDALLION AND ANIMAL CARPET 


In the center of an indigo field covered with angularly drawn trees and plants and various 
animals, including deer, lions and leopards, is an eight-pointed star medallion 1n red, 
with bar pendants in ivory ornamented with large lotus flanked by pairs of ducks, pendant 
escutcheons in mulberry bearing pairs of blue fish and again pendant, grape leaf palm- 
ettes in fawn. The medallion is centered on a white stellate rosette decorated with four 
ducks, and is ornamented with blue flaming lions, tawny lions, gazelles, phoenix and scat- 
tered lotus. In each corner is an old gold quadrant bearing blue khilins and phoenix fight- 
ing, with a half bar pendant in mulberry decorated with a blue duck and a half escutcheon 
in gold ornamented with a blue palmette. 

The border is mulberry with widely spaced palmettes alternating deep blue and old 
gold, in each a mulberry or copper-colored lion seizing a green or sapphire deer. The palm- 
ettes are connected by wide undulating ivory bands carrying clear, beautifully spaced lotus 
and foliage. The outer guard stripe is old gold with lion masks and animal heads in blue 
and mulberry. The inner guard stripe is cerulean with rosettes and lotus predominantly in 
old gold. 


Pile, wool; warp, 2-ply cotton, half doubled under; weft, silk, 2 after each 
row of knots; knot, Persian, 16 vertical, 16 horizontal, 256 to the square inch. 


The early Persian carpets were very quiet and subdued in tone, for a certain austere 
reserve is, and always has been, a mark of the cultivated classes in Persia. While they 
have a keen relish in beautiful color, they are more interested in beautiful drawing and 
design, and feel that a mastery of color relations, the harmonious synthesis of many 
tones, rather than the blazing brilliance of a few is the mark of the master. That this 
was a court carpet is perfectly plain from the finesse with which it is executed, and the 
highly sophisticated taste that it shows, particularly in the ample spacing of all ele- 
ments. The animals are from a master’s hand. Intense energy and individual char- 
acter are crowded into these telling silhouettes. It is one of the earliest, perhaps the 
earliest carpet, woven for the Persian court that remains to us. 


NORTHWEST PERSIA, KURDESTAN, EARLY XVI CENTURY 
MEDALLION CARPET 
The field of intense red is covered with angular, powerful, widely spaced half arabesques, 
palmettes, lotus flowers, rosettes and foliage, all rigidly drawn, principally in gold, emerald, 
dark blue, black and white. 

The center medallion consists of a succession of concentric superimposed medallions. 
Reading the entire design from the inside to the outside we find (1) a tiny four-petalled yel- 


Ws) 


Le Taft, Hin. 
w. 7 ft. 8 in. 
Lent by 
Kelekian. 





No. 2 


Medallion Carpet 


CATALOGUE 33 


low flower; (2) a black star in red outline; (3) a white hexagon in black and yellow outline 
with geometrical figures in gold, red and green; (4) a deep red quadrilateral with projecting 
points outlined in white, ornamented by a circlet of massive lotus blossoms in green and 
saffron on green stems; (5) a dark blue quadrilateral medallion outlined in white with six- 
teen cusped points, with a heavy angular ornamentation of lotus blossoms and rosettes on 
straight stems in saffron, red, blue, green and white; (6) a green quadrilateral outlined in 
black with a wide scrolling margin in gold, carrying an angular vine with leaves in red, 
ivory and black. In the corners are quadrants similar to the central medallion. 

The border consists of a highly geometrical rendition of broad-banded arabesques, al- 
ternating cerulean blue and an orange-copper. These embrace alternating red and white 
quatrefoils, each carrying a lotus-fiower decoration, and each on a background of deep 
emerald. The outer guard stripe has white and gold blossoms on straight parallel green 
vines; the inner guard stripe, an angular undulating vine in emerald, saffron and red on 
white, the design changing across either end, introducing arabesques and more blossoms. 


Pile, wool; warp, natural color wool, 2-ply, one thread slightly depressed; 
weft, dark brownish red, 3 after each row of knots alternately over and 
under; knot, Turkish, 9 vertical, 8 horizontal, 72 to the square inch, appearance 
at back slightly wavy, but very fine and regular. 


It is difficult to assign an exact date and provenance to this carpet. No really simi- 
lar piece has been found or published, although the general plan is common in most Six- 
teenth century Northwest Persia carpets. But no early Persian carpet, either from the 
Northwest or any other region, exhibits colors of such purity and intensity. That wool 
could be endowed with such brilliance will surprise even the experienced. These colors 
glow as if illumined by a hidden fire and yet they are so adroitly balanced, contrasted 
and mingled that there is no sense of harshness. The principal conditions of such an 
achievement are to be found not only in the virile and sophisticated taste of those who 
planned the carpet, but in such specific factors as superb wool and remarkable dyes, 
each of which is essential to the other if really great effects are contemplated. 

Rugs have occasionally appeared that we know were woven in the Kurdish Dis- 
trict in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with intense dyes and lustrous wool 
similar to those in this carpet. As most of the Northwest Persia carpets of affliated 
design are of much dryer, duller wool, it is reasonable to suppose that this carpet was 
woven in the Kurdish District for some local noble who, following the general plan of 
the Northwest Persia carpets, felt, and justly, that he could deepen and intensify 
their color. 

An argument could be made for the attribution of this carpet to Western Asia 
Minor. The construction is similar in a number of points, and the patterns have an 
angularity to be found in some of the early Oushaks, but no carpet surely identified as 
early Western Asia Minor has ever been published that has so many features char- 
acteristic of the Northwest Persia patterns. This carpet shows far more identities in 
design and drawing with the Northwest Persia medallion carpets than with anything 
. known from Asia Minor. 

The carpet is deserving of extended study. It was found in Bombay about twenty 
years ago and came into the American market labeled ‘““Hispano-Moresque,”’ a con- 
venient term commonly used to cover all kinds of rugs whose identification is doubtful 


or difficult. 


Us 12 {Gy fine 
w. 8 ft. 
Lent Anonymously. 





imal Carpet 


on and An 


Medalli 


CATALOGUE 35 


NORTHWEST PERSIA, XVIII CENTURY 
GARDEN CARPET 


In the center is a canal indicated by zigzag blue lines on a deep crimson ground with side 
canals of similar pattern. The rest of the field is divided into eight rectangular areas repre- 
senting flower beds, each of which ts in turn divided into squares containing conventional- 
ized flowers and trees in rose, ivory, green and light blue. These beds are surrounded by 
similar floral devices. The border consists of a strong reciprocal between two white guard 
stripes with blocklike leaves on straight stems. 


Pile, wool; warp, cotton; weft, light blue cotton, 2 after each row of knots; 
knot, Turkish, '72(?) to the square inch. 


It is generally thought that these patterns represent a continuation of the famous 
Spring Carpet of Chosroes which was captured at Ctesiphon when the Arabs defeated 
the Persians in the seventh century. The contemporary account quoted in most of the 
rug books('8) describes a vast carpet of incredible magnificence, which represented a 
garden with canals, flowers and trees worked in silk, gold and precious stones. We can- 
not be sure that the Spring Carpet followed the same design as this carpet, though the 
scheme is congenial to Persian taste. It may be that the continuity of tradition is prin- 
cipally literary. But the garden loomed so large in Persian life, a source of joy and 
comfort in a land of brilliant light, frequent heat and much aridity, that from the be- 
ginning it has been a symbol for Paradise, and it is probable that in every stage of 
Persian art efforts have been made to capture and express its special charm. The 
carpet shows the usual plan of Persian gardens even today, formal beds divided by 
water courses. 


A number of carpets of this type are in existence. A small but very lovely one, 
formerly in the Lamm collection, was given by Mr. Ballard to the Metropolitan Mu- 
seum of Art. There is an older but very fragmentary piece in the Kaiser Friederich 
Museum, and a piece not as old or as large in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The 
close affiliation of some of the minor patterns with Kurdish carpets, the dates of which 
we know fairly well, as well as the width of the minor borders, makes it impossible to 
place the carpet earlier than the second half of the eighteenth century, although some 
writers have thought this type much earlier. 


CARPETS FROM KASHAN AND WESTERN PERSIA 


There can be no doubt that a great many of the finest carpets of the sixteenth 
century were woven at Kashan. It was the greatest industrial city of Persia, famous 
for its pottery as well as for numerous and beautiful textiles. It no doubt contained 
a variety of carpet-weaving shops using slightly different techniques and favoring 
different styles. The definition of this still hypothetical class cannot be attempted 
until more technical analyses of early carpets are completed. The Ardebil carpet, 
which is almost certainly Kashan work, and the red silk carpets which are even in 
India today called Kashanis, might form a working base for the determination of 
the class. 


(28) Cf. e.g. W. A. Hawley, Oriental Rugs, p. 76- 


Le 22 ff; 

w. 9 ft. 4 in. 
Lent by 

S. Kent Costikyan 





Medallion Carpet 


GAAS O.GiGsk 6G 


We know from contemporary accounts that looms were located at Hamadan that 
were weaving carpets for the court.(*) But the characteristic work of these looms has 
not yet been identified. Mumford’s suggestion that No. 8 is from Western Persia is at 
least plausible.(?°) There has been a survival in this region of carpets laid out around 
a long central panel with cusped ends, a not very common plan, and the liberal use 
of camels’ hair which carpet No. 8 shows is, as Mumford says, quite characteristic of 
the Hamadan region, but the information is not yet at hand for defining this class. 


PERSIA, KASHAN, 1539 
CARPET FROM THE MOSQUE OF ARDEBIL 


A field of deep lustrous blue is closely covered with an elaborate and graceful tracery of 
leaves and blossoms on sweeping spirals of delicate interlacing stems which collide, cross and 
recross in a subtle and intricate maze that half reveals and half conceals numerous patterns 
of exceeding beauty. The design focuses on a great star-like medallion in gentle golden tones, 
from whose cusped and pinnacled margin depend sixteen oval cartouches in various colors 
and with varied interior ornamentation.) Two beautiful rose and blue mosque lamps 
hang from the cartouches on the central axis. The medallion is conceived and executed 1n a 
masterly fashion. Around a central escutcheon, pale blue with a circlet of lotus blossoms, 
four sets of arabesques of exceptional elegance and grace are joined so that the contour of 
each repeats the contour of a lobe of the medallion. Delicately shaped cloud bands flutter in 
and out of the more formal and emphatic arabesques. 

Part of the original guard stripes of the border remain: cloud bands in alternating 
position superimposed on a subordinate pattern of vines and blossoms. The remainder of 
the border is missing, as are parts of the field. The border 1s pieced out by sections of a 
modern Ferraghan. 


Pile, wool; warp, silk; weft, silk, 3 after every row of knots; knot, Persian, 
23 vertical, 21 horizontal, 483 to the square inch. 


Despite its fragmentary condition (it was sacrificed to complete its pendant in the 
Victoria and Albert Museum) no one needs to be told that this is one of the masterpieces 
of the art of rug weaving, or indeed of any art. It justifies all of the praises that have 
been bestowed on Persian carpets. 

That the rug was actually woven in Kashan, rather than in Ardebil seem highly 
probable when we consider, as many writers on rugs have failed to do, the practical 
conditions under which a great carpet must be woven. In the first place, one man alone 
could not have made the two Ardebil carpets in several lifetimes. Such work calls for 
a large and highly trained staff accustomed to following the will of the master—carders, 
spinners, loom riggers, and a large crew of weavers. Such an outfit was not easily 
moved from place to place in a country like Persia. The transportation of carpets, even 
larger and heavier than these, on the other hand, has always been a matter of course. 
In the second place, the carpet weaver is especially firmly tied to the soil and not free 
to wander, as did many of the poets, calligraphers, tile and metal workers and archi- 
(19) Hammer, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiche, Budapest 1834, Teil I, s. 369, quoted by Werner Grote-Hasenbalg, 
Der Orientteppich s. 123. 

(2) John Kimberly Mumford, The Yerkes Collection of Oriental Carpets, XXI. 


(21) The ornamentation of the lowest cartouche is identical with that of a piece of Turkish faience of the sixteenth 
century, shown beside the rug, which was made in Syria by Persian workmen. 


L. 23 ft. 11 in. 
w. 13 ft. § in. 
Lent by 
Duveen 


ict 3a ge We ge ke @ ve Mas os rrp 


. 





Garden C, arpet 


CATALOGUE 39 


tects, because the same dyeing formula will give astonishingly different results, owing 
to the different chemical properties of the water, even in neighboring villages. Con- 
temporary references show that this was just as true in the sixteenth century as today. 
Moreover, dyeing was a specialized and secret craft, so that even aside from differences 
of water, it would be improbable that the dyers of one region would have exactly the 
same shades as those in another. Thus a weaver who had learned his color schemes in 
one place and was used to certain tones would be seriously handicapped when trying 
to secure fine results in another locality. And in the third place, only a well-established 
and experienced weaver would have been entrusted with so important an order. Mak- 
soud of Kashan must have been a noted man in his craft, the director of a large and 
highly organized workshop. Lesser weavers might possibly seek opportunities in the 
remoter provinces in spite of the distance from the court and the novelties and diffi- 
culties of the environment, but it is not probable that as great a man as Maksoud must 
have been would have left Kashan, the greatest center of Persian textile art at the time. 
In short, the facts all point to Kashan as the place of origin. (2?) 

It is the inscription in the cartouche, a feature that gives the two carpets a value 
even in addition to that conferred by their extraordinary beauty, which has been in- 
terpreted to mean that Maksoud did his work in Kashan, was indeed a slave attached 
as head weaver to the Mosque at Ardebil. It reads: 


“T have no refuge in the world other than thy threshold. My head has 
no protection other than this porchway. The work of a slave of the holy 
place, Maksoud of Kashan in the year 942” (i. e. 1539 A. D.) 


But only those unfamiliar with the habits of speech in Persia and the Near East 
generally could have made this inference, for the first two lines are a quotation from 
Hafiz(2*) and all the language is figurative. It contains no information except that Mak- 
soud of Kashan, a devout man, superintended the weaving of these two carpets in 1539. 
Any patriotic and religious man in Persia at the time would have been apt to use sim- 
ilar words in referring to Ardebil, which stood especially high in the respect and affec- 
tion of all Persians. And as for the status of Maksoud, “Thy slave” is a common 
salutation in Persia and means hardly more than “Good morning, Sir’. 

The date is indisputable and of precious importance. It has been the starting 
point for all dating of sixteenth century carpets, and its importance is scarcely min- 
imized by the discovery of an earlier carpet in Italy dated 1621,(%4) since, the’ latter 
carpet is of such a different style the implications of its date are confined chiefly to the 
region of Northwest Persia, while the more floral character of the Ardebil carpets relates 
them to a greater variety of Persian weavings. 

If the attribution of these carpets to Kashan be correct, the complete and scientific 
analysis of them ought to furnish a canon for the identification of many of the finer 
carpets of the sixteenth century which are now nameless. 


PERSIA, KASHAN (2), SECOND HALF XVI CENTURY 
FLORAL MEDALLION CARPET 


A central cusped medallion decorated with delicately swinging arabesques has dependent 
from it on the central axis beautifully serrated palmettes whence depend again escutcheons. 
(22) Mr. B. W. Stainton of Vincent Robinsons, a specially well qualified judge in these matters, is in entire agreement 
with this interpretation. 

(23) Cf. Kendrick and Tattersall, Hand Woven Carpets, p. 18. 

(24) Cf, Footnote No. 11. 





No. 6 


i 


1 


Carpet from the Mosque of Ardeb 


Pease 


Gen ied. Glan 4t 


All these are in old rose, ivory and gold. The ground of deep blue 1s richly covered with a 
profusion of lotus flowers, various leaves and blossoms set on widely curving spiral stems 
which make intricate patterns. In the wide border of old rose are set small tvory acanthus 
leaf palmettes separated by lotus blossoms. The ivory guard stripes bear undulating vines 
and flowers. 


Pile, wool; warp, 4-ply pinkish cotton; weft, goats’ hair, 3 after each row 
of knots; knot, Persian, 16 vertical, rg horizontal, 224 to the square inch. 


The carpet is important not only for its obvious beauty, but also for the close resem- 
blance of the ornamentation of the main field to that of the Ardebil carpet. The colors 
are similar, many of the botanical details identical, the-pencil-like drawing of the ten- 
drils and the spacing of the ornamentation practically the same. Although this carpet 
is smaller, later and simpler, it is so near in style to the Ardebil carpet it seems certain 
that there is some close connection. It does not seem to be a copy, but rather the con- 
tinuation of the same tradition. 


WESTERN (?) PERSIA, THIRD QUARTER XVI CENTURY 
ANIMAL CARPET 


A round central medallion in dark brown camels’ hair with semi-circular groups of vart- 
colored winged Genii at their feasts in the Gardens of Paradise, is placed on a panel-shaped 
field with cusped ends. The unusual pendants to the medallion are formed by a pair of con- 
fronted peacocks under a canopy standing on a graceful bracket, a common feature in the 
later Vase and Polonaise carpets. 

The ground color of the panel-shaped field is of deep ruby red covered with a resplen- 
dent variety of palmettes, lotus flowers, tiny blossoms and delicate tendrils across which roam 
in various positions of attack, flight and combat most of the wild animals of Persia—tions, 
tigers, leopards, lynx, foxes, wolves, deer, gazelles, rabbits and the Chinese Khilin, in nu- 
merous tones of ivory, yellow, green, black, blue and copper. 

The corners, defined by the cusped arches of the central panel, are in light jade green, 
carrying an intricate and powerful arrangement of spiral arabesques in white and red 
against a subordinated accompaniment of small flowers and vines. 

Because of the desire to subordinate the border to the character of the main field, the pat- 
tern is not altogether easy to read, but it consists of an ovoid palmette in ruby red depending 
from a huge undulating vine of the same color, which has the outline of broad arabesques. 
The arabesque bands are decorated with lions and other animals in like tones, the palm- 
ettes with lotus flowers and pairs of birds, and the golden interstices with small energetic 
symmetrical cloud bands in blue-black. 

The inner guard stripe in dark brown carries a lengthy inscription in Persian. 

Some of the colors are unusual, the olive green, the deep brown and pale rusty red are 
not often found in early carpets. 


Pile, wool; warp and weft, yellowish silk, 3 weft threads after each row of knots; 
knot, Persian, 21 vertical, 18 horizontal, 378 to the square inch. 


Although the carpet is unusual, almost to the point of uniqueness, it has some 
affiliation with at least two other carpets: the great carpet in red, gold and dark blue 


L, Of tt. 40in, 
w. 5 ft. 10 in. 
Lent by 

M. & R. Stora. 


Le Louttas ine 
w. 6 ft. 8 in. 
Lent by 
Parish Watson. 





Detail of the Carpet from the Mosque of Ardebil No. 6 
PLATE II 


GAA LOG en 43 


which is in the Victoria and Albert Museum,(?*) and which Dr. Bode has long regarded 
as the finest of all known rugs, and the Sarre animal carpet and its pendant in the 
Metropolitan Museum. (2) 

The rich bracket reminds one of the corresponding figures in the Victoria and Albert 
Museum piece. The ground color, some of the botanical details and many of the 
animals, bear a striking resemblance to the Sarre carpet. The details of the drawing are 
a little different, but the resemblance is sufficiently close to make the assumption 
reasonable that both carpets were woven from cartoons of the same designer. 

On account of the strong framing of the panel and the powerful constraint of the 
corners, the main border has been subordinated and no longer presents the strong con- 
trast with the field which we expect in early Persian carpets. This subordination is, 
however, aesthetically correct, for the delicacy of the pattern and the movement in the 
main field would have been oppressively circumscribed if the border were any less 


congenial. 
From the Yerkes Collection Published in color, John Kimberly Mumford—The Yerkes 
Collection of Carpets) Plate No. 21. 


WESTERN PERSIA, END XVI CENTURY 
ANIMAL CARPET 


The ground of the field is a deep, glowing scarlet; a round center medallion, large corners, 
and half escutcheons projecting from the sides are in ivory. The center medallion 1s placed 
in the middle of a larger medallion, cusped and pinnacled in gold outline, containing a dec- 
oration of four pairs of confronting peacocks on a vigorous angular lattice-work of stems 
with eight lotus blossoms radiating from the center. A palmette and a beautiful bell-shaped 
escutcheon depend from the tips of the medallion on the long axis. The corners carry pheas- 
ants on foliage like that in the medallion. The remainder of the field 1s vigorously orna- 
mented with lions, gazelles, leopards, wolves and wild goats dashing across a maze of 
emphatic and brilliantly drawn lotus blossoms, smaller flowers and foliage that are bound 
together by both straight and curving stems. The border consists of pairs of peacocks against 


foliage similar to the field, alternating with pairs of fish, enclosing lotus blossoms, the fish 
leaping upward to seize pairs of ducks. 


Pile, wool; warp, double cotton of varying thickness and colors—white, blue and 
rose; weft, 3-ply of very fine dark goats’ hair; sides overcast on two very heavy cot- 
ton cords; knot, Persian. 


This carpet is important, both historically and aesthetically. It epitomizes a 
long history of styles. The representation of pairs of fish comes from China and ap- 
pears in quite similar form in an early thirteenth century miniature belonging to 
Kelekian. The pairs of peacocks are Byzantine in origin, while some of the gazelles 
closely resemble those on the Sassanian rock carvings at Tak-i-Bostan done in the sixth 
century. 

(2) For illustrations, see Guide to the Collection of Carpets in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Bode, Vord- 
erasiatische Kniipfteppiche, 3 Auflage, Abb. 14, 15 (Eng. trans. Riefstahl). 


(3) Both of these carpets have been many times published. Cf. for example, John Kimberly Mumford, The 
Yerkes Collection of Carpets, No. XVIII, and especially Alt Orientalische Teppiche, No. VII. 


tig ft, 4:in. 

w. 7 ft. 10 in. 

Lent by 

Bernheimer Brothers. 





Floral Medallion Carpet 


CATALOGUE 45 


Aesthetically, it is one of the most brilliant and vigorous of Persian weavings. 
Quite apart from the vivacity of the animals, the drawing itself, while simple, is clear 
and strong, full of a variety that is unexpected and stimulating without being confus- 
ing. Despite the forcefulness of the drawing, many of the patterns are of exceeding 
beauty and elegance, as for example the fine lotus between the pairs of leopards at the 
end of the field, or the pheasants in the foliage of the corners. The deep and glowing 
colors well suit the pattern. The clear scarlet is illumined and intensified by ivory and 
gold, the copper saffron and deep blue are vitalizing colors, and the small areas of 
white provide a staccato animation. The pale green margins of the palmettes mediat- 
ing the transition to the scarlet of the field is but one of many intelligent devices used 
to compose colors so forceful in themselves that if ignorantly and carelessly combined 
they would fatally conflict. 

There are interesting variations within the carpet itself. The pair of gazelles below 
the medallion are balanced by a pair of asses above. The lions below have long noses, 
those above, short. There are differences also in drawing some of the flowers. Just 
what these differences comport is not easy to say. It may indicate that a number of 
people worked on the carpet or that the head weaver was himself disposed to variety 
and experimentation. In any case, it shows that the carpet was not slavishly following 
a painter’s cartoon. 

There is no data on which to base a confident attribution. The character of the 
warp, as well as the intensity of colors, might reasonably be held to indicate Western 
Persia. 


CARPETS FROM EASTERN PERSIA, HERAT 
SO-CALLED “ISPAHAN” CARPET 


The most famous of all Persian carpets in America is the so-called “Ispahan,” a very 
handsome rug with palmettes and scrolling vines on a field of deep claret red with a 
wide green border carrying elaborate palmettes. These carpets are nearly always 
called “Ispahan, sixteenth century.” None were woven at Isfahan and only a few 
date from the sixteenth century. Dr. Martin has shown good reasons for assign- 
ing them to Herat (27), and evidence from India shows that they were woven in vast 
quantities, especially in Lahore by colonies of weavers that came down from the 
Herat region. The carpet rapidly degenerated and the bulk of those in the sixteenth 
century are without artistic merit.(??*) They were manufactured in haste. The de- 
signs soon became perfunctory and confused, the material and the weaving cheap 
and coarse, yet so great is the tyranny of names and established fashions that high 
prices are still paid for pieces without merit, merely because they carry the coveted 
label. Herat was in the sixteenth century a greater city than Isfahan, and the de- 
scendants of the Mogul princes who had established their courts there, attracted the 
greatest artists and literateurs from almost the whole of Asia. The early carpet de- 
sign reflected a great deal of the highly sophisticated taste and exquisite perfection 
which marked the Herat school of painting. Chinese influence was strong as is seen 
in the numerous cloud bands which appear in the earlier pieces and which remain in 
clumsy form even in the latest weavings. Indeed, one of the characteristic marks, 
aside from the color scheme of these carpets, is the placing of a ribbon-like cloud 
band along the middle axis and often in groups of four around the center. 

(27) Martin, op. cit. p. 69. 
(28) Cf. Arthur Upham Pope, Oriental Rugs as Fine Art, The Story of the Ispahans, Int. Studio, February, 1923. 


Ve 


(+) 


REN ee 


‘ Vv: e 
a Ly 
E- ati: 





No. 9 


Animal Carpet 


CDA OG UE 47 


Although this was the usual scheme, the early rugs of this general type show a 
considerable variety and some of them contain elaborate animal groups, such as 
numbers 12 and 13, but the difficult animal drawing was given up by the end of the 
sixteenth century, saving for a few sporadic instances, such as the piece recently sold 
from the American Art Galleries(2®) and a much later piece in the Kunstgewerbe 
Museum, in Cologne. (?°) 


EASTERN PERSIA, REGION OF HERAT, MIDDLE XVI CENTURY 
FRAGMENT OF FLORAL CARPET 


A wide border of several tones of glowing emerald green is ornamented with alternating 
large and smaller palmettes, the larger flanked by confronted phoenix, the smaller bearing 
lion masks, on a background design of two orders of scrolling vines alternately pale green 
and red, with varied blossoms and small lotus flowers. The outer wide guard stripe of red 
is decorated with Chinese cloud bands in light and dark blue on a running vine. The inner 
guard stripe bears a delicate undulating vine with lotus blossoms on pale gold. 

The field is claret red with a lotus palmette in gold and black, flanked by flowering 
trees with various birds, smaller palmettes, tiny blossoms and scattered cloud bands of vart- 
ous sizes and colors. 


Pile, wool; double warp, fawn silk; weft, fawn silk, 3 after each row of knots; 
knot, Persian, 19 vertical, 21 horizontal, 399 to the square inch. 


This fragment ranks with any example of the rug weaver’s art. It is constructed 
on the general plan of the Herat carpets, but it so far surpasses the usual type that one 
might doubt the attribution and see in it the work of some special palace looms. But 
if it were woven in the west, it would probably have been in Kashan, as the fawn silk 
weft is somewhat akin to that of the Ardebil carpet. It is quite possible that the Herat 
type was rendered by the weavers of Kashan, probably the greatest of Persia in the 
sixteenth century, although they reckon ill who minimize the importance of the achieve- 
ments of Herat. So much glorious work was produced there it is imprudent to set any 
limits to the skill of its weavers. 

But wherever woven, it is a document so eloquent, so charged with inspiration, so 
expressive of perfect knowledge, sure and mature, that this piece alone is sufficient to 
substantiate any claims that have been made that the finest carpets should rank as 
works of art. 


EASTERN PERSIA, HERAT, MIDDLE XVI CENTURY 
FRAGMENTS OF ANIMAL CARPET 


The fragments here assembled into a tolerable unity consist apparently of three strips of 
border sewed together to constitute the field and three nearly complete sections of corner. 


(29) No. 62 in the Collection of Vitall and Leopold Benguiat. Illustrated in color in catalogue published by the 
American Art Association, December, 1925. 

(8) It should be explained that such terms as Herat, Oushak, or Bergamo do not mean neccessarily that the carpets 
were woven in that particular place but in a region dominated by that city or market. The title Herat Group or 
Oushak Group, as the case might be, would be more exact but too clumsy for repeated use. 


1c) 


In GO fte2 in: 
We 2 ft. 3 in. 
Lent by 
Kelekian. 


Il 





No. ro 


Fragment of Floral Carpet 


+ 





In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Kuba was an indus- 
trial city of some magnitude and its wares, especially carpets, 
could be found in markets as far separated as ferusalem and 
Isfahan. Carpets of this type were probably planned to profit 
by the immense prestige of the Isfahan Vase carpets and their 
very thick and hard foundation 1s perhaps an imitation of the 
double warp pieces woven in Foshaghan.. They do catch some 
of the magnificence of their distinguished models but, as in this 
piece, they never wholly disguise their peasant origin, and the 
strong and broad patterns are a bit provincial though withal 
honest and engaging. 


Si 9 


RL 


SS . * f 
Sy Ee? + << 3 
ee =A i ‘ 

- Lay 


eR RGN AN 
ac TIS 





No. 34 


Caucasus Carpet 


CATIA Gill e 49 


quadrants, and one indeterminate section, possibly part of a central medallion, have been 
used for the corners. The border consists of part of two guard stripes, one carrying a 
Persian inscription and the other lotus and tiny blossoms. 

Lhe patterns consist of peony palmettes in fawn, green and crimson crisply outlined 
in dainty white cotton, alternating with lotus flowers in similar tones, each originally 
with silver, placed amid a field of rich, varied, very sharply drawn leaves and blossoms on 
two borders of stems, one buff and red with double white outlines, the other an almost in- 
visibly fine single line, all on a background of sapphire blue. Pheasants, finches and 
other birds are scattered through the foliage. 

Three of the corner sections are composed of strong-stemmed, graceful, intertwining 
grape vines with lotus blossoms and very unusual grape clusters fanked by a flower spray 
and finch in citron, buff and red on an emerald green ground. The interior section 
contains a remarkably drawn heron. The other corner, originally with silver thread, 
contains a few lotus flowers, a leopard, lynx and gazelle, in buff and pale blue, and a 
rampant copper-orange tiger. 

Pile, wool and cotton, originally with passages of silver; warp double, fawn 


silk; weft fawn, silk 3 after each row of knots; knot Persian, vertical 24, hori- 
zontal 22, 528 to the square inch. 


In judging this exquisite remnant of a once great work of art all considerations of 
general composition must be ignored. The arrangement of the stems in the corners 
is indeed masterful, but for the rest it is the quality of the drawing and color that 
warrants study and admiration. Such firmness of texture, such exquisite delineation, 
such variety, such freedom of spacing—as if the flowers were scattered on the field by 
some graceful gesture—these are so rare as to furnish a test by which other designs 
and weavings are to be judged. Its merit would be the more conspicuous if seen 
beside the much praised expensive later carpets from this region. It is pathetic that 
the force, the brilliance, the elegance and conscientious finish here exemplified was so 
soon to be ruined by haste, by economic opportunity and the pressure of foreign taste 
with unsympathetic ideals and with little knowledge of what rug-weaving could at 
best accomplish. 

Though small, its rebuke to slovenly work of all kinds is formidable—and the 
standard of quality which it sets has authority for every branch of art. 


EASTERN PERSIA, HERAT, MIDDLE XVI CENTURY 
ANIMAL CARPET 


The ground ts a richly shaded crimson, fiuctuating between old rose and deep claret, carry- 
ing a magnificent ornamentation of superbly drawn complex palmettes and lotus blossoms 
of various types and sizes in numerous shades of emerald, gold, sapphire, rose and ashes of 
roses, Silver blue and fawn, decoratively placed amid delicately scrolling foliage, inter- 
Spersed with fluttering ribbon-like asymmetrical cloud bands and beautifully drawn, superbly 
executed scenes of animal combat in gold, blue-black, fawn and ivory. The most conspic- 
uous of these shows a copper-red lion felling a huge spotted deer. Wolves and khilins dash 
about while leopards crouch in waiting. 


hag ft. 

We? ft. 3 i. 

Lent by 

P.W. French & Co. 


1 


% 


NEI wie’ 


" 





imal Carpet 


1Ma 


Fragment of An 


CATALOGUE 51 


Pile, wool; warp, very fine linen, 3 threads; weft, 2 terra cotta silk, one 3-ply 
linen, 3 after each row of knots; one warp thread doubled under but not entirely 
concealed; knot Persian, 13 vertical, 16 horizontal, 208 to the square inch. 


This carpet belongs toa very small and very famous group, of which a splendid frag- 
ment is in the Vienna Museum fiir Kunst und Industrie. This fragment will be pub- 
lished in color in the first volume of the new Vienna book. Other fragments are in the 
Musée des Arts Decoratifs. Another large and almost intact carpet of this type was in 
the Exhibition at Munich. The fame of these carpets rests upon an ample foundation 
of merit. The variety, subtlety and charm of their colors would be sufficient alone to 
establish them in the first rank. Here nearly twenty tones are distinguishable. Of green 
alone, there are olive, emerald, Nile and golden. The yellows also are pure and mellow, 
very Close to the color of gold. The claret red of the field takes on a vibrant glow from 
the many arbrashes or “shadow bands,” zones of varying shades that enliven and enrich 
the entire surface. The drawing is worthy of careful study. The great palmettes and 
exceedingly beautiful lotus show the influence of the court painters and their Chinese 
models. The evenness and perfection of the spirals, the sparkle of the star-like blos- 
soms, provide both grace and animation of delightful quality. 

Quite as important as the merits of the individual designs is the highly successful 
and original way in which they have been composed to make an enchanting ensem- 
ble. Each element retains its own individuality, yet the mutually enhancing forms 
have been assembled with such easy and spontaneous grace that the whole composition 
imparts a contagious exuberance. 


EASTERN PERSIA, HERAT, LAST THIRD XVI CENTURY 
ANIMAL CARPET » 


The ground 1s a lustrous claret red. The center group consists of a subordinate quatrefoil 
medallion in comparatively small scale around which are arranged in a rectangle two 
conventionalized flaming halos, two huge lotus flowers and, on the diagonals, four smaller 
lotus. This group is flanked by large palmettes and flaming halos set on a diamond- 
shaped framework. ‘The interstices are filled with small flowers and various birds and 
animals: leopards, gazelles and ducks symmetrically arranged in pairs. The colors are 
gold, fawn, ivory, deep blue, turquoise, silver blue, crimson, rose and dark and pale green. 

The border consists of alternating rosettes and bar cartouches decorated with lotus 
Jlowers connected by smaller eight-pointed stars, on a ground of deep blue green richly 
ornamented with lotus flowers, leaves and cloud bands. The inner border carries a complex 
group of large flowers and tiny blossoms set on interweaving stems on a copper-saffron 
ground. This piece 1s composed of sections taken from a large carpet. (31) 

The elements and general layout of this design persisted in Persian carpet weaving 
longer than any of the other typical sixteenth century carpet patterns. A much simpli- 
fied edition of it was woven in the region of Herat well into the eighteenth century, and 


especially after the capture of Herat by Nadir Shah in 1731, the weavers who were 
transferred to various placesin Western Persia carried with them many of the elements 


(1) This carpet will be fully described and discussed and illustrated in color with supplementary plates in a forth- 
coming catalogue of the carpets belonging to Mrs. Edith Rockefeller McCormick. 


Mette tyeaaitly 
w. § ft. To in. 
Lent by 
DeMotte. 


a 


Lent by 
Mrs. Edith Rockefeller 
McCormick. 





No. 72 


Animal Carpet 


CATALOGUE 53 


of the pattern. The flaming halo is common in Kurdistan and Karabagh rugs well into 
the nineteenth century. The diamond lattice framework became an essential element 
in Sehna and Feraghan rugs. Even before the victory of Nadir Shah the flaming halo 
began to appear in the rugs of the West. It 1s to be seen in almost perfect form on a 
carpet from the Kuba region, belonging to E. Beghian of London, dated 1721. The 
pattern itself has its immediate origin in the flaming halos of fifteenth and early sixteenth 
century painters, who used it in almost exactly the same form. They, in turn, derived 
it from the Buddhist halos of Central Asia, which as early as the tenth century appear 
as detached patterns.(*2) Thespecial charm of the piece consists in velvety texture, the 
mellowness and variety of the colors and the firm manner 1n which the rich and power- 
ful decorative elements have been composed. 


EASTERN PERSIA, HERAT, MIDDLE OR THIRD QUARTER XVI 
CENTURY 


FLORAL CARPET 

A field of deep green blue is gorgeously ornamented by a rich and brilliant array of huge 
palmettes, numerous styles of lotus flowers, pairs of phoenix and many cloudbands with 
asymmetrical loops placed at various angles throughout, in ivory, rose, turquoise and cel- 
adon. The main floral motives and dainty star-like interstitial blossoms are set on two 
orders of even, delicate spirals on conflicting circuits, one in pale green, the other in pale 


rose. The entire design moves in stately measure symmetrically about an invisible center . 


The ivory border bears oval escutcheons alternately olive brown and crimson, connected 
by wide interweaving undulating arabesque bands in red and bluish green, decorated with 
lotus flowers and blossoms in blue and copper. The outer guard stripe consists of inter- 
weaving arabesques in gold, red and blue. The inner guard stripe bears long and rosette 
cartouches alternating, in light blue, dark blue, and red on old gold. 


Pile wool; warp, cotton; weft, 3 after each row of knots, linen; knot Persian, 
13 vertical, 16 horizontal, 208 to the square inch. 


Not all of the so-called ““Ispahans”’ are on a red ground with a green border. While 
that style was always popular and became stereotyped by the European demand, the 
older, quieter harmonies of blue and gold such as we find dominant in the Ardebil car- 
pet (Cf. No. 6) and some of the pieces from Northwest Persia were quite as favored by 
the early designers. The perfection of this carpet, which is evident when compared with 
the commoner types, consists not merely in the quietly satisfying colors and perfect 
drawing, but in the conception which reveals an unerring knowledge of the vital mov- 
ing qualities of lines so that they contagiously swing a sympathetic observer into their 
own easy and graceful motion. The spaced palmettes arrest this motion rhythmically 
like the beats in a melody, supplementing the energy of motion with the energy of 
position. The slowly turning arabesques of the border, moving in broader, more majes- 
tic rhythms, provide a noble and satisfying constraint for the poetic vivacity of the 
field. 


(82) Cf. e.g. some of the paintings from Tuan Houang brought back by Professor Paul Pelliot and now on exhibition 
n the Salle Pelliot of the Musée Guimet. These will all be published shortly by Prof. Pelliot, many in color. 


14 


Loe ft..$ 10. 
Welot. Df in. 


Lent by Kelekian. 


-- 





Floral Carpet 


GA Tes TO Gunes ss 


EASTERN PERSVAS HERAT SHCONDIHALE XVI CENTURY 
SO-CALLED “ISPAHAN” CARPET 


On a field of deep claret red exquisitely drawn palmettes and lotus blossoms of many 
designs and sizes are symmetrically grouped around a common center. Scrolling vines, 
tiny leaves and blossoms, pairs of phoenixes and numerous cloud bands in wory, fawn, 
turquoise, celadon and blue black complete the design. 

The border is deep velvety green with alternating palmettes and lotus blossoms sur- 
mounted by pairs of magpies against an intricate background of delicate green tendrils. 
The inner guard stripe of pure golden yellow carries an undulating vine while the outer one 
1s red with blossoms in fawn, gold and ivory on crimson. 


Pile wool, cotton and silver; warp double, yellow silk; weft, 3 linen, 1 fawn 
silk, 4 after each row of knots; knot, Persian; 28 vertical, 19 horizontal, 
342, to the square inch. The areas of yellow silk were once solidly tnter- 
woven with minute ribbons of pure silver. 


? 


Almost all of the so-called “sixteenth century Ispahans,” of which there are 
not far from two thousand in America, are really seventeenth century carpets woven 
in Herat or in Lahore in North India, where these carpets were manufactured in vast 
quantities after they became popular in Europe. Sixteenth century pieces are so 
uncommon it is worth while when one of this character is found to note the qualities 
which warrant the earlier dating. The general artistic vitality, the richness of color, 
the skill of drawing, the careful planning of the design which must be apparent to 
every observer, are always marks of early work. More specific evidence is found in 
the color of the border which is still a deep and pure green. Later it becomes a bluish 
green and finally a rather dead blue. Another noteworthy feature is the perfect 
placing of undistorted palmettes in the corners. In the later pieces these palmettes, 
grossly enlarged, are sadly warped. Quite as important and perhaps less obvious 1s 
the moderate size of the border ornaments and the scrupulous way in which the tiny 
margins on both sides are maintained throughout. Such a margin, small though it 
is, sets off the border ornament giving it clarity and movement. In the later pieces 
these border figures come in contact with the guard stripes, a ruinous blunder which 
robs them of all life and movement. The clumsy, hurried, commercialized work 
of the seventeenth century done with an eye on the European market had no time 
for such subtleties, but they are the life of the art. 


CARPETS FROM CENTRAL PERSIA, JOSHAGHAN GHALI 
(SO-CALLED VASE CARPETS) 


The vase carpets constitute a small but exceedingly important group. About twenty 
carpets approximately intact are known. Some of the carpets which count as whole 
pieces, however, are merely composed of adroitly assembled fragments and only three 
or four pieces are in really first-class condition. Many museums and collectors have 
more or less important fragments. 

The reasons for this excessive rarity are to be found in the fact that the output was 
never large, having been almost wholly confined apparently to the court; and, in the 


5 


bey {tain 

w. 4 ft. 7 in. 
Lent by 

Duveen Brothers. 





Floral Carpet No. 15 


CrAs Teal OG. is 


second place, in the fact that the double warp, which in some ways gives great strength, 
was not favorable to the continuous wear the carpets received in the palaces of Isfahan, 
so that many were destroyed through use. The double warp makes possible a very 
dense pile and so permits of firm and accurate drawing, hence it was preferred despite 
certain disadvantages. 


For a long time these carpets were thought to have been woven in Kerman, al- 
though the only evidence ever cited, principally by Dr. Martin, was very slight; but 
the evidence of the carpets at Kum and the very specific and confident assertions of 
many old Persian families that they were woven at Joshaghan Ghali, which was one of 
the summer residences of the court and was in every way favorably situated for carpet 
production, seem to be decisive for that attribution. 


The general scheme of a display of flowers on a curtain-like background 1s common 
in early Persian painting, where it was no doubt inspired partly by the character of the 
landscape (#*) and partly by Chinese styles.(#4) Many of the individual motives are 
traceable to Central Asiatic sources, and there is a significant relation between the 
general pattern of these carpets and the seventeenth and eighteenth century embrot- 
deries from Bokhara, which show the same lattice-like division of the field and phe same 
grandiose flower forms 


For magnificence and power, for a certain noble and markedly individual quality, 
these carpets rank very high. Indeed, some experts are inclined to place them near the 
summit of all carpet weaving. For, while lacking something ofthe finesse of those car- 
pets which so closely follow the painter’s art, they have preserved the essential char- 
acter of textile decoration, which is an ample compensation. 

The influence of these carpets was important and widespread. ‘They were repro- 
duced not only in Kurdestan, the Baktiari region and the Caucasus, in a rather clumsy 
fashion, but also in India, whither, according to Abul Fazil, the chronicler of Akbar, 
they were exported, and where the style was rendered with astonishing elegance and 
finesse. Together with the Polonaise carpets they appeared at the Turkish court also 
and contributed many interesting details to the decoration of the Turkish faience of 


the period. 


Pensa, }OSHAGHAN GHALI, END XVI CENTURY 
VASE CARPET 


On a ground of wine red a variety of majestic palmettes and conventionalized flowers 1s 


arranged in three major and two minor vertical rows. The figures of the three major rows — 


are in each horizontal line identical in construction but the center one in each instance 
differs in color from the outer two. Half rosettes meet the margin at etther side. In the 
left secondary row two vases on elaborate brackets and with interior ornamentation of 
arabesques are substituted for rosettes and two half vases appear also in the right marginal 
row. These figures are rendered in light garnet, saffron, fawn, grass and jade green, tur- 
guoise, cerulean and sapphire blue and tvory. A large scale ogtval tracery connecting 
(33) Cf. Ernst Diez, Die Elemente der Persische Lancschaftmalerei und ihre Gestaltung, in Kunde, Wesen, Entwick- 
lung, Vienna, 1922, s. 117. 


(#4) Cf. e.g. the miniature of a Garden Scene in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs of Paris illustrated in nearly every 
work on Persian Miniature Painting. 


16 


Vase Carpet 





+‘ 


ae 628.352 


SA? 


CATALOGUE 59 


these motives 1s defined by two series of stems, one in ivory and one in blue. The interstices 
are filled with smaller scale palmettes, leafy vines and tiny blossoms in the same tones and 
many of the intersections of the stems are marked by tchis of various forms. This design 
1s abruptly changed, across the top of the field, to a pattern of interweaving arabesques. 

The dark blue border is covered by an interweaving tracery of arabesques in fawn and 
ivory carrying at close intervals various styles of lotus flowers and lilies in the same colors 
as the field ornaments. The outer guard stripe is a reciprocal in cerulean blue and rose. 
The inner guard stripe of fawn bears a fine flowering vine.(°) 


Although unfortunately few Vase carpets are known they are divided into three or 
four groups. The earliest have heavy lattice-like leaves dividing the field into rigid and 
conspicuous compartments like the fragmentary piece in the Ewkaf Museum in Con- 
stantinople.(#*) Those of the second group have adjoining compartments on contrast- 
ing ground colors, each containing a flower or flower spray. The best examples of this 
group are the great carpet in the Schloss Museum in Berlin(#’) and its pendant in the 
collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay. The third type is marked by massive pal- 
mettes and conventionalized flower forms to which every other element in the compo- 
sition is subordinate. Of this type, this piece and the Ballard fragmentary piece are 
the only early examples save for a few scattered smaller fragments. It was from this 
type that the majority of subsequent vase carpets were developed. These subsequent 
classes, sometimes on a red ground, sometimes white and sometimes blue, are marked 
by a diminution in the size of the palmettes, the increasing importance of the sub- 
sidiary floral ornamentation and the growing naturalism mounting to botanical exact- 
ness in the rendition of a remarkable variety of the Spring flowers of Persia. 

The history of the origins of these patterns and of their assemblage into such a 


powerful and decorative design, unique in Persian art, is a long, complicated and | 


interesting story. Many of the patterns seem to have been derived directly from the 
painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Others come from early six- 
teenth century carpets, here isolated and greatly enlarged. But the composition of 
these elements into such a strikingly new decorative scheme is not yet clearly under- 
stood. The important fact is that a type was thereby created which is marked a thing 
apart from all other carpet designs. It has little of the symmetrical finesse that 
characterises most carpets but has instead an uncompromising grandeur and force 
that were never approximated in carpets save only in the severe Dragon carpets. 

Of the fifteen or twenty vase carpets known to exist, of which only five are in 
private possession either here or abroad, this is the largest, it is in the most perfect 
condition with the possible exception of a piece, known by rumor only, in a German 
noble family which must from the description be of much later date, and it is at the 
same time one of the earliest, perhaps the earliest with the possible exception of the 
sadly damaged piece in the Ewkaf Museum. The later pieces may surpass it in 
varied poetic charm, in elegance and in the skill of their naturalism, but this maintains 
its supremacy by virtue of a certain epic and heroic grandeur that places it in the fore 
rank of all achievements in the decorative arts. 

(*) Technical details and a full discussion of the carpet in relation both to the history of the design and to other 


pieces of the type will appear in a monograph with color plates and many supplementary illustrations, to be pub- 
lished shortly by Mrs. McCormick. 


(%) Illustrated: Meisterwerke Muhammadanische Kunst Tafel 52, and Bode-Kuehnel, op. cit. abb, 35. (cf. Eng. 
trans. Riefstahl.) 


(8) Illustrated in color: Werner Grote Hasenbalg der Orient teppich seine Geschichte und Kultur, frontispiece. 


Leven Ftates 

WerGeule tt: 

Lent by 

Mrs. Edith Rockefeller 
McCormick. 








Nowa 


Vase Carpet 


Cee OG Us 61 


PERSIA, JOSHAGHAN GHALI, EARLY XVII CENTURY 
VASE CARPET 


The ground of old rose 1s almost concealed by a dense array of large scale rosettes and 
palmettes and huge flowers in saffron, light and dark blue, deep green, seal brown and 
purple garnet. At the top is a pair of tall vases out of which grow flowering trees flanked 
below on the margins by half peacock tails fancifully rendered. Except for the corre- 
spondence of the right and left halves none of the major elements of the design is repeated. 
Including those on the central axis, more than thirty-five can be counted, a tour de force of 
ingenuity and imagination. The apparently haphazard and crowded arrangement really 
follows a fundamental scheme. Two sets of inconspicuous, irregular lattice-like stems, 
one 1n blue and one in gold, divide the field into overlapping ogival compartments and at 
the same time bind together the major motives. 

In the border small groups of starry frowers, jasmine, campanula and primulus, 
alternate with single larger flowers, a conventionalized poppy bud, a full blown poppy and 
a third flower that is called in ‘foshaghan today an onion flower. These recur in a complex 
but systematic arrangement. 

Pile, wool; double warp, cotton; weft, cotton and linen, 3 after each row of 
knots; knot, Persian, square, 16 vertical, 13 horizontal, 208 to the square 
inch. Fading: light bluish green originally yellower; deep rose terra cotta 
faded to a lighter tone nearer buff; light saffron turned slightly whitish; 


light blue, dark blue, garnet, seal brown, deep green and dark red un- 
changed. 


This carpet marks something of a transition from the earlier carpets, such as the 
McCormick piece and the fragmentary piece in the Ewkaf Museum, to the very intri- 
cate and more refined later types, such as the blue carpet in the Kaiser Friederich 
Museum and the large fragment in the Stieglitz Museum in Leningrad. It has much 
of the formidable grandeur of the first group and much of the elegance and intricacy 
of the second. There have gone into the design of this carpet energy of thinking, 
inventive resource and a sense for magnificence, all in high degree. The piece is in an 
exceptional state of preservation. 

Published, Altorientalische Teppiche, Tafel V. 


PERSIA, JOSHAGHAN GHALI, EARLY XVII CENTURY 
VASE CARPET 
On a field of old rose a great vartety of palmettes, rosettes and huge conventionalized flowers 
and three vases on graceful brackets holding branches of fruit blossoms are arranged in four 
major and three secondary vertical rows. Two series of stems, one in gold and one in blue, 
running through and connecting the major patterns divide the field into numerous incon- 
Spicuous interlacing ogival compartments. The principal colors are deep blue, turquoise 
and greenish blue, pale gold, fawn, seal brown, purple garnet, emerald and celadon green. 
Underlying this main design 1s a fine tracery of delicate tendrils with tiny blossoms. 
Snail-like tchi forms occur at regular intervals throughout. 

In the dark blue border is a succession of various kinds of rosettes and lotus blossoms 
alternating with sprays of blue plumbago and white jasmine. 


a7, 


Eo P9ett. arin, 

w. 6 ft. 2 in. 

Lent by % 
Bernheimer Brothers. 


18 





Floral Carpet No. 19 


CATALOGUE 63 


Pile, wool; double warp, cotton, 4-ply; weft, 3 after each row of knots, 
2 cotton and 1 linen; knot, Persian, 12 vertical, 15 horizontal, 18o to the 
square inch. 


Although the influence of the court painters and faience makers is beginning to show 
in some of the elements of this design, nevertheless the carpet remains essentially the 
product of the weaving art itself, maintaining a rugged individuality and exhibiting 
its native character as a heavy textile with a satisfying frankness that we sometimes 
miss when the weaving is too completely dominated by the painters. It confesses an 
ancient and honorable lineage of textile tradition. There is specific evidence that 
although woven for the court of the most magnificent of Safavian monarchs the 
weavers were disdainful of the accuracy of the more meticulous weaving, and it must 
be admitted that the resultant individual variations do endow the carpet with a 
decisive personality which perhaps made this type the more agreeable to such a forth- 
right and energetic character as Shah Abbas, for whom this piece was almost certainly 
made. But, like most significant works of art it contains within itself a double and 
contrasting character; the force and energy of the great patterns are softened and 
refined by mellow and harmonious colors, so that for all its power the carpet has 
gentleness and reserve. 


Published, Heinrich Jacoby, Eine Sammlung Orientalischer Teppiche, S. 17, Tafel 1. 


PERSIA, JOSHAGHAN GHALI, EARLY XVII CENTURY 
FLORAL CARPET 


On a field of quiet old rose a rich assortment of decorative but naturalistic flower sprays: 
campanula, narcissus poeticus, iris, willow shrub, rose, calendula, carnation, aster, lily 
and fruit blossoms, in fawn, rose, light and dark green, light violet, gold and ivory, is 
ranged about a small but vigorous center eight-pointed star medallion of gold ornamented 
with energetic interlacing arabesques in green and numerous small tchi forms in violet, 
characteristic of this type. In the corners are quadrants of the same medallion. 

The border is green blue with rosettes, blossoms and leaves in red and gold and a few 
tchi forms. 


Pile, wool; warp double, cotton; weft, linen, 3 after each row of knots; knot 
Persian, 16 vertical, 17 horizontal, 272 to the square inch. 


Although the vases and huge palmettes are missing, this carpet is a worthy member 
of the great group of vase carpets. The flower patterns are identical with the flowers 
of many of the larger pieces as well as of well known fragments and the scattered chi 
forms are a characteristic mark of these weavings. To have attempted in such small 
compass the huge flower forms would have betrayed a lack of taste and understanding. 
But for all its small dimensions, and it is the only small rug of the kind known, it has 
maintained the virility and clarity of the best of the type and to this have been added 
a freshness and charm of color that bring a joyous quality into the style somewhat 
lacking in the solemn early carpets and most appropriate to the smaller and more 
intimate size. 


Wks tty 
w. 6 ft. 
Lent by 
B, Altman & Co. 


to 


DenOnttenguime 
w. 4 ft. 8 in. 
Lent by 
Kelekian. 





No. 20 


Vase Carpet 


GAEL OiGd ee 6s 


PERSIA, JOSHAGHAN GHALI, FIRST THIRD XVII CENTURY 
VASE CARPET 


The deep, greenish blue ground 1s resplendently decorated with palmettes, rosettes, lotus 
flowers and vases set on a double order of stems in gold and pale green that outline irregular 
ogival lattices, alternating with sprays of fruit blossoms and masses of flowers, including 
thistles, Persian roses, asters, coreopsis, evening primroses, poppies, primulus, tris and 
one willow tree all in pale red, rose, fawn, saffron and a great variety of blues ranging from 
green and turquoise to a deep cerulean. There are numerous small tcht forms. 

In the border, on a ground of mellow glowing gold, a composite flower of lily-like 
contour alternates with a stellate rosette and a grape leaf palmette with graceful naturalistic 
vines and leaves intertwining. 


Pile, wool; double warp, 4-ply cotton; weft, 3 after each row of knots, one 
2-ply cotton and 2 silk; knot, Persian, 15 vertical, 16 horizontal, 240 to the 
Square inch. 


Although this carpet is incomplete it must nevertheless rank as one of the finest of 
the Vase carpets known. It still preserves something of the dignity and scale of the earlier 
pieces now refined and enriched without becoming lost in the intricate maze that so 
delighted the later designers. Such accuracy and delicacy of contour, such consistency 
of perfect drawing, such firmness and restraint are scarcely found in any carpet. The 
growing influence of the painters with their increasingly naturalistic and pictorial 
effects is clearly shown here. Without losing the decorative character the patterns 
have acquired botanical accuracy. The entire pattern is arranged with a freedom of 
invention and sophisticated asymmetries which, despite their boldness, are perfectly 
harmonized and controlled by the major plan, here unfortunately fractured by a 
missing section. This freedom, if attempted by a designer less wise and experienced, 
would certainly have yielded confusion but here we have rather a deeply satisfying 
richness and a quiet peace. 

The willow shrub for several generations common in miniature painting was espe- 
cially beloved by Riza Abbasi, and its presence in the carpet may reflect his popularity 
at the court if not his actual handiwork. 

Published, Heinrich Jacoby, Eine Sammlung Orientalischer Teppiche, S. 21; Tafel 2. 


PeRoia |OSHAGHAN GHALI, EARLY XVII CENTURY 
FRAGMENT OF ARABESQUE CARPET 


On a ground of clear, intense blue two sets of interweaving arabesques are rendered in gold 
and red with touches of pale green, salmon and a purple garnet against a secondary 
pattern of mille fleurs. In the border are two orders of paired arabesques in colors corre- 
sponding to the arabesques of the field. 

Pile, wool; warp, double, fine, evenly spun cotton, 4-ply; weft, 3 after every 


row of knots, 2 of linen, 1 very fine silk; knot, Persian, 16 certical, 17 
horizontal, 272 to the square inch. 


_ This is obviously a fragment of one of the greatest carpets ever woven. The mate- 
rial of its structure shows that it was an exceptional effort for a great person and the 


WV 
O 


itp GIN ts, WE 0a 
w. 5 ft. Io in. 
Lent by 

B. Altman & Co. 


aI 


L. 4 ffs 
Ww. 3 ft. 5 in. 
Lent by 


Bernheimer Brothers. 





Fragment of Arabesque Carpet No. 21 


Ne AIO GUsE 67 


supreme beauty of the pattern and color also makes this immediately clear. The 
swirling conflicts between the two orders of arabesques against the background of 
flowers, delicate and sparkling but aloof, reach a pitch of dramatic vividness worthy 
of the best in music or literature. Abstract pattern has been here endowed with an 
intensity and elevation of feeling that an uninspired imagination could not have 
foreseen. 


PERSIA, JOSHAGHAN GHALI, EARLY XVII CENTURY 
FRAGMENT OF VASE CARPET 


This fragment is one of the few samples of carpet weaving that we can prove came 
directly from one of the palaces of the Safavian Shahs. It was found in 1880 in 
Chehel Seitun (Palace of the Forty Columns), an exquisite structure built by Shah 
Abbas at the beginning of the seventeenth century. 

In 1880 the Governor General of Isfahan, H. I. H. the Zillies-Sultan, undertook 
repairs and alterations on the building. In the course of the work it was discovered 
that two very uneven floors really consisted of earth and plaster to a depth of six 
inches. When this debris was removed several carpets were revealed. As sections 
came to light they were hacked off by workmen and sold for a few tomans each. This 
particular piece was at the time presented by the Governor General himself to Mrs. 
Joseph Elias, then living in Isfahan. (3*) 

The explanation, universally accepted at the time for this odd burial of carpets, 
was that when the Afghans attacked and captured Isfahan early in the eighteenth 
century, the carpets were safely concealed by this practical method, the only one 
feasible under the circumstances when we take into consideration the huge bulk of 
these carpets and the lack of ready hiding places for such ponderous property. It 1s 
probable that those who buried the carpets were killed in the massacre that followed, 
so that the whole matter was forgotten. 

It is worth noting that only carpets of the Vase style were thus found buried. 


PERSIA, KURDESTAN, DATED 1794 
Oe yeOrensCARPET IN VASE CARPET STYLE 


A ground of midnight blue is closely covered with a powerful and exciting pattern of 
interlacing arabesques in sharply contrasted red and ivory. These are crossed by three 
vertical rows of grapeleaf palmettes, the middle in white the two side rows in emerald 
and olive green. The various spaces created by the arabesques are filled with a great 
variety of the spring flowers of Persia, such as poppies, iris, narcissus poeticus, carna- 
tions, roses and fruit blossoms and willow shrubs, done in red, ivory, fawn, several shades 
of green, several shades of blue and pale garnet. Small tchi forms exactly like those in 
early Vase carpets, as for example, the small floral piece of the Vase carpet type No. 19, 
are scattered thickly throughout the field. 


(88) This information was supplied by Mr. B. W. Stainton who was in Isfahan at the time. 


2, 2, 


Lent by 
B. WV. Stainton. 


a 





Arabesque and Floral Carpet 


CATALOGUE 69 


In a small ivory cartouche at the top of the carpet 1s the signature of the weaver: 
“Made by Gerous Ali Riza Khan 1209 A. H.” (1794 A. D.) 
The border consists of two very narrow floral guard stripes. 
Pile, wool; warp, 4 ply silk; weft, 2 ply linen (°), 2 after each row of knots; 
knot Persian, 19 vertical, 21 horizontal, goo to the square inch; overcast on 


8 cords; red end seluage with wool inserted stripe. No evidence of color 
changes. 


This carpet is important far beyond its years. Thanks to its absolutely perfect 
state of preservation, it has apparently never had the slightest use, and thanks also 
to the extraordinary accuracy and spirit with which the Kurdish weaver reproduced 
an early Vase carpet, we can see almost exactly how the great Vase carpets of the 
classical period looked when fresh from the looms. 

All of the elements of the later Vase carpets, after the designers had given up the 
huge palmettes and flower forms, are here in drawing, the brilliance and exactness of 
which falls only a shade short of that of the great weavers. The deficiency, though 
slight, is interesting and can be seen by a careful comparison of the arabesques with 
those in the blue fragment (No. 21). The weaver of this carpet reproduced not only 
the given design and the bold spirit and rich color of his model but also minute details. 
Such fine points as the fringe on the tiny comet-like /chis are indistinguishable from 
those in the early carpets. 

The tiny guard stripes and the red selvage with the wool insert indicate clearly 
that the carpet was woven in Persian Kurdestan, probably in or near Byar. The 
name Gerous in the signature probably refers to the little town of Gerous, northeast 
of Bijar, where rugs similar to this have been woven down to within a few years. 
A quite similar piece, although much later in character, also from Gerous, dated 
1268 A. H. (1851), is in the Royal Palace at Teheran. The Kurds are the master 
copyists of the entire Orient. They can reproduce anything with a startling fidelity 
that other weavers never approach. In all respects even to the technique of the 
knot, the piece is identical with its model. 

The reason for such a creation is really not far to seek. It is probable that some 
Kurdish chief or noble had, sometime a hundred or two hundred years before, received 
as a present from the great Shah Abbas himself or one of his immediate successors, 
a Vase carpet, and that, as the original began to suffer from wear, his heirs had this 
copy made to preserve and renew their treasure of great price. 

More important than such considerations is the dashing and brilliant beauty of 
the carpet. Because of the superb color, made possible by the fine quality of the wool 
and the skill of the dyeing, because of the fine knotting which gives a compact pile 
with the possibility of vivid contours, because of the clarity and sumptuousness of 
the pattern and the almost reckless boldness with which they are assembled and, 
finally, because of the perfect freshness of the whole weaving, we have in this piece 
one of the finest examples of the carpet maker’s art, quite worthy to take its place 
with the old masters about it. 


PERSIA, JOSHAGHAN OR KURDESTAN, ABOUT 1800 

ARABESQUE CARPET 

Interweaving arabesques in red and ivory divide the dark blue field into irregular com- 
partments in which are various spring flowers and two willow shrubs. Some of the 
intersections of the arabesques are marked by palmettes. 


Ly Eaiit.. 3 ing. 
w. 4 ft. 6 ins. 
Lent by 


Costikyan & Co. 


24 


Wis-aeeswne 


ees 


So-Called Polonaise Carpet 





GAA O GUE 71 


The border is ornamented with oval flower medallions flanked by angular lancet 
leaves with small blooms in the intertices. Both guard stripes bear running vines with 
small flowers. 


This carpet, one of a pair, again illustrates how persistently Vase carpet patterns 
survived in Western Persia. The basis of the design which is only a broader rendition 
of the preceding number is to be found in the top panel of the McCormick carpet 
(No. 16). It is only one of innumerable variations of this pattern, the most funda- 
mental and remarkable in the whole repertoire of Near Eastern designs. Centuries 
of experiment and literally thousands of combinations with this simple form never 
seem to have exhausted its possibilities. It can enter as many permutations as if it 
were a digit and in its different phases has more varied and expressive content than 
almost any single word. The arabesque as an element in design practically vanished 
from most Persian arts a hundred years ago. Its peculiar quality, it has to be thought 
about to be seen, could not survive in the dullness and indifference that came in with 
the general Persian decline in the nineteenth century. 

Although this carpet has come a long way from its original forbears, it has merit: 
vigor, clarity, richness and a sound decorative sense. Its excellence comes from the 
fact that it looked only to indigenous standards and asked and conceded nothing to 
the European taste that was just beginning to make itself felt through the medium 
of traveling merchants about the time the carpet was woven. 

Excellent examples that show the transition from the old Vase carpets to these 
more modern reproductions will be found in Martin. (**) 


SILK CARPET FROM ISPAHAN COURT LOOMS 


SOsC ALLE Ds POLONAISE CARPETS 


In THE Paris Exposition of 1878, a large group of silk and gold carpets from the Czar- 
toriski collection of Warsaw was exhibited under the caption “Tapis Polonaise’ and 
for thirty years the name persisted. It was thought that they were done by a certain 
Pole named Mersherski who, on his return from the Orient in the middle of the eighteenth 
century, established looms for silk and gold weaving in Poland. This theory was long 
ago exploded by Dr. Bode and Dr. Martin. The presence of carpets in the Royal 
Residence at Munich and one in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum with Persian inscrip- 
tions proves Persian origin, which was also really sufficiently indicated by the character 
of the design.(#°) Although somewhat different from contemporary Persian carpets, it 
is truly Persian in character. Perhaps the florid and excessively rich quality of the 
patterns reflects something of the influence of the Italian Renaissance which was felt 
at the Court of Shah Abbas, who was so cordial to European styles that he did not 
hesitate to employ an Italian architect named Grimaldi for important work. Further 
details and proof of Persian origin and evidence that they are related to the Vase 
Carpets woven in Joshaghan Gahli came to light this year in Persia. (*") 

The fact that a great number of these carpets had been found in the possession 
of old European families and courts would indicate that they were woven primarily 
for the purpose of presentation to European monarchs and ambassadors, and this may 


(39) Cf. e.g. Martin op. cit. Fig. 195. 

() For the fullest discussion in English of these carpets with a summary of Mersherski’s contract, see Arthur Upham 
Pope, Oriental Rugs as Fine Art, Polonaise Carpets, International Studio, March, 1923. 

(41) This also will be discussed in the article in the College Art Bulletin on the carpets at Kum. 


Teel et teens 

w. 6 ft. 8 in. 
Lent by 

Vincent Robinson. 


ignites nel 


or 


Se a) 


Arse 


Py &< 3x 2 
¢ ais Nig 


oa SO. 


Carpet 


7S€ 


Called Polona 


SO- 


Sx 





CATALOGUE 73 


also account for the character of the patterns, so obviously planned to be overwhelm- 
ing in their luxury and elegance. (*) 

Approximately four hundred of the Polonaise carpets in pile weaving are known, 
but only about a dozen pieces woven in the tapestry or khilim stitch are in existence. 
It has always been assumed, but never proved, that the tapestry pieces were from the 
same atelier as the others. The designs are quite different, more elegant and reserved 
than luxurious, with ample spacing and the sharp drawing made possible by the tech- 
nique. The gold and silver, however, are nearly always inserted in the same manner. 
It is also a well-established fact that all the khilim carpets differ markedly from those 
woven in pile by the same people. A different pattern for each type of weaving has 
apparently always been the rule, and a sound rule it is. Until we get evidence to the 
contrary, therefore, the assumption that both the Polonaise types have a common 
origin 1s reasonable as well as convenient. 


Piola, ISPAHAN COURT LOOMS, EARLY XVII CENTURY 
SO-CALLED POLONAISE CARPET 


The background of deep seal brown 1s almost covered by a series of rich arabesques and lancet 
leaves on strong stems whose sweeping curves define various compartments. The design 1s 
dominated by a delicately cusped center medallion of deep blue with four palmettes and 
four arabesques in topaz, celadon, fawn and Nattier blue, flanked by four round pal- 
mettes with reciprocal inset margins of a type specially common in Vase carpets. 


The border contains pairs of arabesques set on dark blue irregularly undulating stems 
define various compartments in light emerald, golden salmon and fawn. The large com- 
partments contain palmettes, each partly surrounded by a broad simple cloud band. 

Pile, silk and silver; warp, cotton; weft, linen and vari-colored silk, 3 after 
each row of knots; knot Persian, 14 vertical, 17 horizontal, 238 to the square 
inch. 

The reputation of Polonaise carpets among the judicious was long ago compromised 
by the poor and shabby pieces. Of inflated and confused designs, all but obliterated 
by wear, with pretentions far beyond their merit, they did no credit to the art of rug 
weaving. There have been other pieces too small for the scale of their patterns. 
As Aristotle insisted, proper magnitude is an essential element in aesthetic effects, 
and meagre size is particularly unpleasant when opulence and the imperial manner 
are intended. With a size adequate to the grandiose patterns, and a design clearly 
thought out, the Polonaise carpet, as in the present instance, may become a thing of 
thrilling beauty. The enchanting, fairy-like colors, often of more than twenty high 
keyed tones, the cool glint of the silver or gold surfaces, the radiant sheen of the silk 
combine to create a vision of exciting loveliness that must have quite dazzled contem- 
porary Europeans, and that was one of the purposes for which they were woven. 


PiotayloPAHAN COURT LOOMS, EARLY XVII CENTURY 
SO-CALLED POLONAISE CARPET 
The design is constructed around a central star medallion in gold with four finely drawn 


lotus. Large complex arabesques on broad curving stems define various compartments 


(42) Important discussions of these carpets will be found in Martin, Op. Cit. p. 62 et seq. and in Bode-Kuehnel Op. 
Cit. p. 26 et seq. 


me 


ey ts 7 in. 

w. § ft. Io in. 
Lent by 

Duveen Brothers. 


26 


S 


ec eo: tainenamanntivicsnntiomn tasers measreannet™ 





y Carpet 


ise Tapestr 


Called Polona 


So- 


CAsT Aino GUE 76 


of which two in dark seal brown serve as medallion pendants. The compartments adjoining 
the medallion are in silver, the others in gold. All the compartments are similarly decorated 
with lotus blossoms and palmettes on dark spiral vines with delicate buds, flowers and lancet 
leaves. 

The border is a powerful reciprocal, alternating silver and salmon. 

In addition to the silver and gold, of which considerable areas have survived, the prin- 
cipal colors, not counting numerous intermediate tones, are deep seal brown, pale taupe, 
brilliant Nattier blue, turquoise, a light silvery blue, deep blue green, emerald, pale green, 
topaz, ivory, rose and salmon. 

Pile silk, remnants of gold and silver; warp double, cotton, 5 strands; weft dull 


fawn or copper-colored silk, 4 strands; 3 after each row of knots; knot Perstan, 
Z3 vertical, 16 horizontal, 208 to the square inch. 


The rationality and clear organization of the design, marks of relatively early date, 
do not militate against a regal sumptuousness which is attained primarily by the 
high keyed colors, so fresh and pure; by the exceeding beauty of the lotus and larger 
flowers forms, almost worthy of the Sixteenth Century; by the richness of the ara- 
besques which still preserve their character as arabesques, often lost through excessive 
elaboration in later pieces; and finally by the powerful dominant note of velvety 
brown. This resonant masculine tone, echoed in spirit by the rugged border, and sus- 
tained by crisp outlines and decisive accents, saves the carpet from any hint of weak- 
ness and endows it with the precious vitality that comes only from genuine contrasts, 
mediated and resolved. 


From the collection of Prince Lichtenstein. 


Published: Altorientalische Teppiche, Vienna, No. 5, Color Plate No. IV. 


PERSIA, ISFAHAN COURT LOOMS, SECOND QUARTER XVII CENTURY 
See Aig FP DEPOLONAISE TAPESTRY CARPET 


On a field of pale gold a medallion in cerulean blue encloses a dragon and phoenix fighting 
flanked by a fox and a spotted deer inverted. The bar pendants are tvory with pairs of 
confronted ducks, the Chinese symbol for conjugal happiness. The corner quadrants, 
also blue, carry ferocious rampant lions in orange with flaming shoulders. The field 
is covered with rich but simple lotus fiowers and varied foliage with several graceful 
pheasants, rendered in rose, scarlet, orange, salmon, leaf green, pale green, deep blue, 
medium blue, light turquoise, ivory and a curious but very successful taupe. 

In the border elongated cartouches in blue containing lions or tigers alternate with 
quatrefoil rosaces in gold containing varied lion masks. The background 1s silver. 


Warp, fine yellow silk, 28-29 to the inch; weft, stlk with silver inserted. 


This piece and its two companion pieces (Cf. No. 28) are closely related to the 
set of tapestry carpets, which were exhibited in Munich in 1gto (“), which bear the 
arms of Anna Katherina Konstanze and were, as we know from the records in the 
Residenz Museum in Munich, presented to her in 1642 as a marriage gift. Some of 
(48) Cf. Meisterwercke Muhammadanischen Kunst, Tafel 60. 


leon te 1 Gens. 
w. 4 ft. 8 ins. 
Lent by 
Parish Watson. 


=) 


Led ft. 7 ins 

w. 4 ft. 4 in. 

Lent by 

Bernheimer Brothers. 


m7 &. 


ae: ie, 
PSCC ea ce apes e 





So-Called Polonaise Tapestry Carpet 


GATALOGUE 77 


the pieces were obviously made to order for this occasion. For this reason we are not 
justified in putting a much earlier date on any of the tapestry Polonaise. Nonethe- 
less they have a distinct relation to earlier design. They show the same simplicity 
and energy of pattern as earlier pieces, the same liberality of spacing and the same 
delicacy of stem drawing, here turned in even curves in an exquisite and perfect 
tracery. The lions are in the style of those of the early sixteenth century that might 
possibly have been designed by Ghiyas-ed-Din, as the one signed carpet and one 
signed brocade might indicate. (*) 

The piece is a shade finer in weaving than most of the others of its class and the 
colors are fresher, more varied and more delicate. It is interesting to note that it 1s 
the pendant to the piece in the Kaiser Friederich Museum which bears the inscrip- 
tion Padisha, indicating that it was the work of the Royal Persian looms.(#) The dif- 
ferences are slight and unessential. 


Piolo h ALAN COURT LOOMS, FIRST HALF XVII CENTURY 
pO-GALLED POLONAISE TAPESTRY CARPET 


On a field of pale gold, an ogival medallion outlined in pale red 1s filled with seven flying 
cranes and small amorphous Tchi forms. They are rendered in turquoise, salmon, pale 
green, rose and black. The pendent bar is in Nattier blue with confronting ducks in 
salmon and silvery blue, while the pendant escutcheon carries confronting geese in blue, 
citron, gold and black. The corners are in Nattier blue with excttingly drawn flying 
cranes in light tones. 

The field is charmingly decorated with animals and foliage simply and flatly drawn and 
beautifully colored in a great variety of delicate shades: rabbits in salmon and black; 
deer in blue, white spotted or deep gold, with blue and salmon spots or even red and green; 
lions in red or blue; dragons in salmon and citron; leopards in white, tbex in black and 
lynx in citron complete this gay rainbow menagerie, which 1s dramatically accentuated 
by the black stems of the trees. 

The border consists of long gold cartouches and smaller rounded ones in gold, blue 
and citron repeating the animals of the field. The guard stripes are predominantly red 
and blue for the inner, and pale green for the outer. 


Warp, silk; weft, silk encircled with gold and silver; 25 warps to 
the inch. 


This fairy-like creation creates a number of problems, for it seems to be the work 
of another loom or at least another cartoon maker than most of the others in the class. 
Compare, for example, the assured and forceful drawing of the Tchi forms in the 
border of the Stora piece (No. 29) with the tentative childlike quality of those in the 
medallion of this piece. For contemporary rugs woven in the same technique and 
materials and presumably for the same patrons the differences are striking and too 
considerable to have had a strictly common origin. But just what determined such 
contrasting types we can hardly even guess. The extravagant beauty of this piece 
quenches the ardor for discovery and it is most agreeable to forget unsolved puzzles 
and to revel instead in a playful, gentle, poetic quality that has hardly been 
matched in the history of weaving. 

(#) Cf. F. R; Martin, Figurale Persische Stoffe, Fig. 17. 
(4) Bode-Kuehnel op. cit., abb. 48. 


28 


Leite Sin. 

w. 4 ft. II in. 
Lent by 

P.W. French & Co 


. By « yf 
Ned NEMS esas Ty ad nae eS 


) 


Lito : t, : Nie eae Re Ne ae 
Lae TaNT EN. =f e a Lees Zee er eee ran nen 2 


Py: 


>, 





Dragon Carpet 


CATALOGUE 79 


EERolAsishAHAN COURT LOOMS, FIRST THIRD XVII CENTURY 
SO-CALLED POLONAISE TAPESTRY CARPET 


The field 1s pure glistening gold dominated by a magnificent central quatrefoil medallion. 
Two lobes are in silver with bold lotus flowers in gold and red, two in rose fawn with 
blue palmettes. The deep blue areas dividing and surrounding the lobes consist of four 
diagonally placed arabesque silhouettes with varied colored vine and blossom ornamentation. 
A broad red arabesque divides the corner segments into two sections, one carrying a gold 
green and blue lotus on a turquoise ground, the other a superbly drawn palmette in salmon, 
gold and sapphire on silver. 

The bar pendants are in deep rose and the escutcheon in silver with a blue and fawn 
lotus. The side half bars and pendants are in emerald, salmon, scarlet and turquoise. 

The field is covered with a vigorously drawn, well spaced arrangement of leaves and 
blossoms in emerald, olive, rose, scarlet, salmon, fawn, sapphire, turquoise and silver. 
In the upper field a patr of scarlet outlined silver rosettes encloses a spiral lotus in salmon 
and blue, while the corresponding designs in the lower field show a rose leopard felling a 
black and white deer, balancing a white leopard and rose and turquoise deer. 

The deep sapphire border carries a succession of long cartouches all on a gold ground, 
alternating with the star cartouche on grounds of gold and salmon. The decoration 
consists of lotus blossoms and a conventional figure composed of arabesques in various 
tones of scarlet, rose, turquoise, salmon. Outer guard stripe undulating vine and leaves on 
gold, the inner a similar pattern on silver. 


Warp silk; 26-27 to the inch; weft silk, gold and silver. 


There are less than a dozen of these exquisite tapestry Polonaise carpets known 
and this piece has its equal only in the exceedingly gorgeous fragment in the Royal 
Residence in Munich.(*) Only the Munich fragment contains as much silver and gold 
as actually loads this piece. Yet the method of tying the tiny flat ribbons of the silver 
and gold around a thin silk core of the same color saves the carpet from becoming 
garish or metallic. There is enough to proclaim opulence, not enough to verge on 
vulgarity. 

Although woven well into the seventeenth century, like its companion pieces it 
harks back to earlier models. The undimmed freshness of the colors, so frankly 
exuberant, is a perfect expression of the self-confident glory of the reign of the great 
Shah Abbas whose robust aesthetic ideals might well serve to vitalize our somewhat 
anemic taste. 


From the Dragonetti Collection. Published: Arthur Upham Pope, International Studio, 
April 1923. 


(4%) Cf. Meisterwercke Muhammadanischen Kunst, Tafel 61. 


oe 


Lent by 
M., & R. Stora 





Dragon Carpet 


+ 





The air of grandeur which pervades this carpet is due primarily 
to the great size of the main patterns with their intricate but 
firm delineations and to the beautiful mellowness and balance 
of the strong simple colors. A certain ponderous quality 
common in the large Oushaks 1s here relieved by the exceeding 
animation of the vine and leaf pattern encircling the great 
medallion. Its challenging vigor is due primarily to an 
extreme simplification which, while keeping contact with its 
original naturalistic inspiration, has discarded everything 
superfluous. The sharp serrations and abrupt fragmentations 
here count with especial force because of the contrast between 
the golden yellow figure and the midnight blue ground. 


Eva, 
ea 


- a ee 


~ 


ae 


a a 


RPE Tver 





No. 44 258 


Cushak Carpet 


I] 
CARPETS FROM THE EASTERN CAUCASUS 


exeg) 


EASTERN CAUCASUS, KUBA REGION, END XVI CENTURY 
DRAGON CARPET 


A field of clear old rose is divided into compartments by two sets of broad serrated leaves, 
which form a diagonal lattice, in ivory and deep emerald. At the intersections and in many 
compartments are huge, heraldtc-looking palmettes with jagged and hooked silhouettes, and 
complicated star rosaces. In the compartment flanking the medial line are highly con- 
ventionalized dragons, khilins and phoenix fighting, and other scarcely recognizable animal 
forms. The serrated bands that divide the field are decorated with ducks, phoenix and 
heavy blossoms on thick stems. The principal colors of the subordinate ornamentation, 
symmetrically distributed, beautifully harmonized, but everywhere in bold contrasts, are 
deep, medium and pale blue, golden buff, rose, green and a deep plum color, in places verg- 
ing toward lilac. 

Lhe border is decorated with pairs of erect arabesques supporting a conventionalized 
Jlower, sharply and vigorously drawn, in rose, gold, blue and violet on ivory. 


Pile, wool; warp, grayish wool; weft, wool dyed brownish red, 32 after each row 
of knots; knot Turkish, 9 vertical, 84 horizontal, 76 to the square inch. End bor- 
der restored. 


Of the old Dragon Carpets on a rose ground with the conventionalized animals 
perhaps forty or fifty are known, of which only three or four can be held to rival this 
now-famous carpet. Every element that confers greatness upon the type is to be 
found in this piece in high measure. Such austerity, such seizing power, such robust 
yet harmonious color, such forceful silhouettes are hardly to be found in any known 
textile. When compared with a piece of such poetic elegance and infinite refinement as 
the Kelekian fragment (No. 10), the contrast is startling and dramatically eloquent 
of the emotional range which lies within the compass of the art of rug weaving. 

The sources of the impressive power of this piece, which can escape no one, are to 
be found in a great variety of devices, concerning which we may theorize but which the 
artists who created the patterns executed with unerring primitive directness. It is 
almost as if the vast grandeur and savage contours of the Caucasus Mountains were 
transmuted directly into the design, distilled and concentrated by virile and objective 
minds. We who come after can but observe and describe. To cite only a few of these 
devices: The diagonal leaf bands with their uncompromising collisions have jagged 
sawtooth edges which do not correspond; the heraldic palmettes are cut in a sharp and 
cruel contour that suggests metal; the interiors of some of them, carrying lotus, are as 
massive as if built up of stone slabs, and the animal forms are composed of a startling 
array of strong and curious patterns with harsh and sudden protuberances. All the 
patterns display a violent and ingenious unexpectedness, not the normal product of a 


30 


Le tet 
w. 8 ft. 
Lent by 
B. Altman & Co. 


moe ee g : é et er oy ae - 4 


3 ' 
on OPTI ge yore nla arta 
‘ ‘ 5 


~ coe enemmenacemmnemncnialnane 





No. 32 


Dragon Carpet 


Ce OG EEE 83 


tame or civilized fancy, but rather the immediate utterance from some powerful, ob- 
jective foreign world. 


Exhibited Exposition Muhammadan Art, Munich, 1910. No. 92. Published and illustrated: 
Meisterwerke Muhammadanischen Kunst, Tafel 65; Heinrich Jacoby, Eine Sammlung 
Orientalischer Teppiche, s. 39 Tafel 9. Cited: Arthur Upham Pope, Jahrbuch Asiatischer 
Koumsti1925, s. 163. 


EASTERN CAUCASUS, KUBA REGION, XVII CENTURY 
DRAGON CARPET 


The usual dragon carpet design in somewhat more vigorous form and with an unusually 
large number of animals, most of which are unrecognizable except to those who have followed 
the history of these patterns, is rendered in deep rose, deep blue, cerulean blue, greenish 
blue changing to turquoise, citron yellow, light brown or fawn, black and glowing purple, 
fading to lilac. 


Pile wool; warp, coarse 2-ply white wool, concealed, alternate threads deeply 
depressed; weft, dyed reddish wool, 2-ply, 2 after every row of knots; knot, 
Turkish; vertical, 9; horizontal, 8; 76 to the square inch. Fading: Lemon 
yellow in places to whitish; dark brown irregularly, sometimes toward yellow; 
light brown in some places faded to lighter, in others not at all; green in places 
faded to bluish; purple violet irregularly whitened in some places, in others un- 
faded; medium blue, dark blue, red and emerald green not faded at all. The 
thickness of the pile makes it possible to determine degrees of fading with un- 
usual accuracy. 


This carpet is important not merely because of its conspicuous beauty and striking 
force, surpassed by no carpet of its class with the possible exception of the Lamm frag- 
ment, now in the collection of George Hewitt Myers, but even more because it is the 
best preserved piece of the type that has been found, and thus shows as no other piece 
does, approximately what the finest of these carpets looked like in their pristine con- 
dition. The colors are of superlative quality, the pile so deep and lustrous that it 
seems like an animal’s pelt. 


EASTERN CAUCASUS, KUBA REGION, MIDDLE XVII CENTURY 
DRAGON CARPET 

The pattern closely follows that of all of the accompanying Dragon Carpets with the prin- 
cipal exception that the serrations and contours have now been simplified and softened. 
Similarly the colors, which include almost the full scale of the earlier pieces, are now richer 
and quieter, and the field of glowing rose has now given way to a field of lustrous blue. 


Pile wool; warp, plain white wool; weft, wool dyed brownish red, 2 after each 
row of knots; knot, Turkish. 


This is the only Dragon Carpet that has yet come to light which is on a field of 
blue, although a number of pieces contain a good deal of the color. The taming of the 
savage contours that mark the earlier pieces and the turning from the usual red field to 
the softer blue, reflect directly changes in taste that were taking place at the Persian 
court. The early Vase carpets were also on a deep rose ground, but by the end of the 


31 


iby, (0) Hie, 2, Sie 

W. 4 fe 4 in. 

Lent by 

Bernheimer Brothers. 


L. 12 ft. 8 in. 
w. 6 ft. 6 in. 
Lent by 
Bachstitz. 


ae” 
LY LI) fy 
Be “Gog 


ys 
EFI Oe ees 





Caucasus Carpet 


2G Autti LE 8c 


Shah Abbas period (c. 1627) they, too, in response to the increasing refinement of the 
court, turned to the quieter blue. By the third quarter of the seventeenth century we 
find such a set of Vase carpets as the superlatively elegant creations of the Mosque of 
Kum in dominant tones of blue, and while rose Kubas did persist down into the eight- 
eenth century, by the end of the seventeenth it is the blue type that predominates. 
Another interesting parallel in the evolution of the two styles is found in the grad- 
ual disappearance of the powerfully serrated leaf patterns that mark the field divisions. 
These patterns are still used in the carpets, but they now have a broad and placid 
quality, as contrasted with the more exciting character of those of earlier times. 


Cited: Arthur Upham Pope, The Myth of the Dragon Carpets, Jahrbuch Asiatischer 
Kunst, 1925, p- 147. 


FASTERN CAUCASUS, KUBA REGION, XVII CENTURY 
CARPET WITH CONCENTRIC BANDS 


The design consists of a succession of stepped bands in gold, brown, red and green surround- 
ing a central medallion. This medallion and the corners are white. The bands are decorated 
with various highly conventionalized blossoms and stems in similar tones, and the corners 
with huge bent cypress and highly conventionalized animals, the most prominent of which 
is a huge spotted deer. 


Pile wool; warp, coarse white wool; weft, reddish wool, 2 after every row of 
knots; knot, Turkish. 


This rare and early carpet is almost the mate to a piece in the Metropolitan Mu- 
seum, which has been thought to be unique. It belongs to the famous group of the so- 
called Dragon carpets that have recently been shown to have been woven in the Caucasus, 
which on account of their monumental grandeur and superb severity of design have so 
greatly attracted the admiration of art scholars. The same general design scheme 
appears in a certain coarse and rather unattractive type of carpet called Portuguese, 
which is supposed to have been made in Goa, in India, of which the best examples are 
in the Schloss Museum in Berlin and the Vienna Museum of Kunst und Industrie. The 
idea probably originated in Eastern Persia, as it appears with a good deal of elegance 
and discretion in a few seventeenth century carpets that seem to have been woven in 
Khorassan, of which the most famous piece 1s in the Musée de Tissus at Lyons. 

To those who love only finesse and symmetry, who insist on a sweet elegance, this 
carpet has no message; but those who take relish in significant ugliness or in what 
Bosanquet better calls “difficult beauty” will find in it a satisfying tonic, the eastern 
counterpart of much Romanesque and early Gothic taste. 


EASTERN CAUCASUS, KUBA REGION, SECOND HALF XVII CENTURY 
Cori Ob A VASE CARPET 

On a field of mat blue 1s a primary order of three pairs of huge palmettes half surrounded 
by gigantic lancet leaves, the middle fair in red, ivory and blue, the end pairs predom- 
inantly in yellow, blue and white. A secondary order of palmettes, rosettes and large lotus 
flowers in similar tones 15 arranged on a half concealed lattice framework of straight stems. 


3%5. 


Le iE ft) .8 in 
WaOrttguinis 
Lent by 
DeMotte. 


O45; 





Caucasus Carpet No. 35 


CNA LOM CAUND 84 


In the border are red stars, blue lotus and smaller flowers and leaves on an ivory 
ground. The geometrically patterned guard stripes are in blue and red on yellow. 


Pile, wool; warp, white wool; weft, wool dyed reddish, 3 after each row of knots; 
knot, Turkish, 9 vertical, 8 horizontal, 72 to the square inch. 


This carpet is the Caucasus edition of the Persian vase carpet. The Caucasus 
weavers, already well disposed to the large scale patterns by their own styles, were 
naturally tempted to reproduce in their technique the famous vase carpets of the court 
of the great Shah Abbas. While they could not for a moment rival the elegance or 
_ brilliance of drawing, and while the colors are less refined and discreet, none the less 
they have in this carpet caught a good deal of the grandeur and sumptuousness of their 
models. 


Published and illustrated: Jacoby, Eine Sammlung Orientalisher Teppiche, s. 59, Tafel 13 


EASTERN CAUCASUS, KUBA REGION, END XVII OR EARLY 
XVIII CENTURY 


CAnriteWwilhi PALMETTES 


On a field of lustrous rose a double row of huge palmettes 1s disposed between three vertical 
rows of geometrical lotus flowers on straight stems. The largest of these palmettes, which has 
elaborate interior ornamentation of a lotus flower and buds, is fianked by large lancet 
leaves, and the remaining interstitial spaces are filled with smaller lotus flowers, rosettes and 
various geometrical blossoms and leaves on angular stems. The narrow border 1s decorated 
by an alternating lily and rosette, severely conventionalized. 


Pile wool; warp, white wool, weft, reddish wool, 2 after each row of knots; 
knot, Turkish, So to the square inch. 


Some of the later carpets of the Kuba region preserve in smaller form something of 
the ponderous and grandiose effects of the earlier pieces, but they often lack something 
of the ferocious energy of contour, the almost savage serrations which gave the earlier 
pieces their tremendous force. Yet these later forms are still lordly and imposing, 
particularly when, as rarely occurs, a piece is found in such excellent condition, made 
of first class materials, and of color still fresh and keen. A somewhat similar carpet in 
the collection of the Austrian state, was published in Martin (#7) and in the old 
Vienna book (#8), and will appear also in the new edition. 


EASTERN CAUCASUS, KUBA REGION, LATE XVII CENTURY 
CARPET WITH PALMETTES 


On a ground of deep blue, glowing palmette-shaped escutcheons with simple interior or- 
namentation of highly conventionalized leaf forms in deep fawn, dark blue, old rose and 
pale green, are set in four vertical rows. The palmettes, which resemble stately banners, are 
flanked by stiff cypress trees with blown-over tops. 

(47) Martin op. cit. Fig. 304. 

(*8) Vienna Book op. cit. P]. XXII. 


Pei lZeitay i, 
Weary. ite 7 in 
Lent by 

B. Altman & Co. 


35 


by Wik hay OD hie 
WeOutt-s2sine 
Lent by 

E. Beghian. 


nS 


SECTS aa 


end 





Caucasus Carpet 


CATALOGUE 89 


The border of deep fawn 1s decorated with undulating vines, with a large curling leaf, 
which is derived from a leaf form in the Persian Vase carpets.(®) The minor borders 
have delicate detached rosettes characteristic of the Caucasus. 


Pile, wool; warp, silk; weft, silk; 200 knots to the square inch. 


This solemn and impressive carpet belongs to a small but famous group, of which 
only a few examples are today extant. Two are in the Metropolitan Museum, one in 
the collection of Mr. George Hewitt Myers of Washington, one is owned by Mr. V. R. 
Cliff of Detroit, and there is one in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs of Paris. They were 
for a long time thought to have been woven in Asia Minor, because the main pattern is 
very similar to a pattern rather common in the seventeenth century Turkish velvets, the 
piece in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs being obviously a copy of one of these velvets. 
But the character of the weaving of most of the pieces, the little detached geometrical 
and animal figures in the field and the style of the border, which is sometimes found on 
Kuba carpets, point conclusively to the region of the Eastern Caucasus. 

Despite its relatively small size, the rug gives the impression of great dignity and 
importance. The ample forms so simply rendered and broadly spaced create a feeling 
of quiet and solemnity that we rarely get in the more nervous and poetic Persian car- 
pets. The provincial courts of the Caucasus did not usually exhibit as cosmopolitan a 
taste as is found in this carpet, derived from a combination of Turkish and Persian 
models, but there were courts, especially in Shemaka and Baku, that were aware of 
the standards of luxury of the courts in the great capitals. The fineness of the weav- 
ing and the construction are unprecedented in Caucasus work. 


(*°) Cf. Border of No. 20. 


Ly 10 ft 3 in. 
w. 5 ft. 11 in. 
Lent by 

E. Beghian. 


Ovarrs 


i LOSLE EEE, IES 








EAE IS 
= 7 OR 


See 
xo 


Turkish Court Carpet No. 37 


Hit 
CARPETS FROM WESTERN ASIA MINOR 


eam 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, PROBABLY BROUSSA, END XVI CENTURY 
ekiloHeCOURT CARPET 


_ In the center 1s around medallion of dark blue with touches of rose and green, ornamented 
with a circlet of tulips and carnations and with a double wave-like pattern floating across 
the flowers; in the corners quadrants of the same design. The field is covered with inter- 
locking groups of rosettes, tiny Michaelmas daisies and feathery lancet leaves drawn with 
extraordinary elegance and precision. They are deftly illuminated with white, a fine cotton 
which preserves a crisp and dainty color being used instead of wool. In the border, palm- 
ettes alternate with cloud bands with subordinate ornamentation of delicately drawn tulips, 
_ carnations and hyacinths. The guard stripes carry delicate rosettes and tiny leaves in 
green and ivory. 


Pile, wool; warp, light red silk; weft, natural cotton; 238 to the square inch. 


The double wave-like pattern projected against the flowers is probably a Chinese 
device representing clouds, but it came very early into Persian art. Prof. Herzfeld has 
noted (*) that it is to be found as a textile ornament on the garments of one of the riders 
in the Sassanian rock carvings of the great grotto at Tak-i-Boston. A silver Sassanian 
libation dish recently found in the vicinity of Bagdad contains the same device com- 
bined with a large rosette or sun disk, which further strengthens the interpretation of 
these bands as clouds. (*) Mr. C. F. Yao believes that the pattern was originally that 
on the robe of the Emperor of China, which bore on the right shoulder the sun, on the 
left the moon, at the back mountains and in the front two parallel clouds with three 
stars, thus signifying the four divisions of creation over which the Chinese Emperor 
was held to be overlord. It has generally been thought that this pattern was brought 
into Western Asia by the Moguls, but its presence in Sassanian ornament shows that 
it must have been taken over early in the history of commercial relations between 
China and the West. The device was a favorite one on Turkish textiles, and in con- 
nection with the three globes, is very common on velvets as well as the carpets of this 
type. It appears on several Persian carpets, also, as well as on Venetian brocades and 
velvets. (*) 

The patterns are all closely related to those on the so-called Damascus faience, 
which we now know was made by Persian workmen.(#) Much of the Turkish faience, 
(°°) Cf. E. Herzfeld, Am Tor von Asien. I am also indebted to Prof. Herzfeld for bringing the libation bowl to my 
attention. 

(°') For an interesting discussion of the pattern cf. A. F, Kendrick, Turkish Textiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum. 


(°*) Cf. Migeon et Sakisian, La Ceramique d’Asie-Mineure, Paris, 1923, p. 35. 


37 


La Jo ft. 6 in. 

w. 9 ft. 8 in. 

Lent by 

S. Kent Costikyan. 





CATALOGUE 93 


wrongly called Rhodian, shows the same grace and refinement. These carpets enjoyed 
a great reputation even in the sixteenth century, and as early as 1474 Josafa Barbaro 
refers to them as if they were generally accepted as a world standard.(®) Unfortunately, 
only a few of these carpets remain. There are two fine ones in the Ballard collection 
in the Metropolitan Museum, one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, one in the Kaiser 
Friedrich Museum and a companion piece to this, almost the pendant, although 
smaller, was in the Yerkes collection. (*) 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, OUSHAK, SECOND HALF XVI CENTURY 
CARPET WITH GOLD STARS 


On a field of deep scarlet is a row of stellate medallions of composite construction intri- 
cately but clearly ornamented with conventionalized flowers and foliage. Straight sided 
eight-pointed stars project from the sides. The remaining spaces are decorated with 
finely drawn blossoms and foliage in green, blue, ivory and gold. The carpet is framed 
by a guard stripe of blossoms and vines in ivory. The main border is missing and the 
rug has been cut across the top of the first medallion. 


This is one of the earliest and most brilliant of the Oushaks. It was woven at 
the time when the Persian influence was still strong. Similar pieces are in the Kaiser 
Friedrich Museum(®) and in the collection of C. F. Williams(*) now at the Metro- 
politan Museum. The medallions, consisting of stars within stars, for all their 
intricacy are clearly conceived and beautifully constructed. For this we probably 
have to thank the Persians, but the purity and depth of the colors, their strong but 
at the same time gentle and agreeable contrast, is a Turkish invention. 

The surest evidence for early dating is to be found in the famous representation 
of an Oushak carpet in the painting by Paris Bordone, “The Ring and the Fisherman,” 
now in the Academy at Venice, and the two dated pieces of somewhat later type in 


the collection of the Duke of Buccleigh.(*”) 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, OUSHAK, END XVI CENTURY 
ARABESQUE CARPET, SO-CALLED HOLBEIN 
On a field of deep lustrous scarlet highly conventionalized arabesques and palmettes are 
arranged in interlocking open work patterns of quartrefotls and octagons in gold accented 
with greenish blue. 

The border consists of tangent cartouches in red outlined in light blue on a field of 
light blue green with interior ornamentation of highly conventionalized flowers. 
(°*) Cf. Josafa Barbaro, Travels to Tana and Persia. London Edition, 1874, xl, p. 60. 


(*) Cf. John Kimberley Mumford, The Yerkes Collection of Carpets, No. 35. 

() Bode-Kuehnel, op. cit. Abb. 73. 

(8) Cf. W. R. Valentiner, Early Oriental Rugs, New York, 1g1o. 

COSC. ALY, Renee Carpets at Boughton House, Burlington Magazine, Vol. XXV, p. 73. 


TeeLoutts 

Wiig ff. 1S in. 

Lent by 

Bohler &§ Steinmeyer. 


39 





So-called Holbein Carpet No. 40 


GMTECILO GUE 95 


Pile, wool; warp, natural wool; weft, wool dyed reddish, almost as heavy as the 
warp, 2 after each row of knots; knot, Turkish, 8% vertical, 9 horizontal, 
72-76 to the square inch. 


These carpets which, judging from the frequency of their appearance in paintings, 
were very popular in Europe from the middle of the sixteenth century through the 
seventeenth, are known only, with the exception of this piece, in small sizes. But the 
power and richness of the design, its noble decorative possibilities, can be realized to 
the full only on a broad expanse. Again we have an impressive example of what 
wonders could be wrought by the Turkish dyers and designers who could arrange such 
severely simple materials so that they bespoke opulence and grandeur. 

This particular mellow red and soft gold are perfectly balanced, for there is 
enough yellow in the red to make possible a very agreeable union between the two. 

The force of the design comes from the strong fret-like character of the pattern, 
with its innumerable dentations which stimulate the eye to an unusually active effort 
of exploration. The energy expended in these visual processes and their nervous 
concomitants is automatically transferred to the object and seen as its own essential 
and peculiar quality. Thus it is really our energy reflected back into the object which 
is the source of its appealing vigor. In the second place, the effort to grasp the pattern 
is both stimulating and satisfying because the concealed organization of the inter- 
locking groups is controlled by inconspicuous but simple and familiar basal geometrical 
forms. 

It is these carpets that decorated the floors of some of the greatest Tudor mansions 
in Queen Elizabeth’s time. Most of these carpets have disappeared, so that it has 
been assumed that the floors of English houses of that period were always bare, but the 
inventories of the time show that some of the wealthiest nobles possessed great 
collections of these pieces, one list containing, indeed, 106 such items, (°°) while Crom- 
well’s own inventory shows 22 Turkey carpets. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, OUSHAK, SECOND HALF XVI CENTURY 
SO-CALLED HOLBEIN CARPET 


Fluge conventionalized leaf motives in mellow ivory arranged in open work, angular pat- 
terns form octagons and a kind of quatrefoil on a light scarlet ground. The border is dec- 
orated with conventionalized Kufic letters slightly whiter than the field ornament. The inner 
guard strip 1s dark blue. 


Pile, wool; warp, white wool; weft, brownish red wool, 2 after each row of 
knots; knot, Turkish, & vertical, 8 horizontal, 64 to the square inch. 


This pattern, while vigorous, is static, depending for its force not on lines of sug- 
gested movement, but rather on energy of contours, sharp edges, incisive lines, extreme 
irregularity of silhouette and emphatic accents rhythmically repeated. The border, 
though it has much the same character, by its greater density provides a perfectly 
balanced frame. 

The aesthetic formula governing this design is purely Turkish in feeling, although 
some of the elements can be traced back through Persia, perhaps to Central Asia. 


(°°) Inventory of Lord Lumley, 1590. In Walpole Society, 1917-18, p. 28, 38. 


is: BNO Me 

w. 8 ft. 6 in. 
Lent by 
Kelekian. 


40 


Eso ft. tin. 
w. 4 ft. Io in. 
Lent by 


Bernheimer Brothers. 


pst 3 


AP ower ap Bee, 


ype 


%. 


& 


Me 
eee 





Carpet 


in 


called Holbe 


SO 


CAE LO GUE 97 


Others, such as the wing-like half arabesque that marks the corners of the octagons, 
look to Byzantium. The style had a marked influence on certain Spanish carpets. 

No carpet could better illustrate the irrelevance of fineness of stitch to aesthetic 
value. Only 64 knots to the inch, by virtue of the superiority of its color and pattern, 
It quite diminishes many weavings of pretentious technique. It is no wonder these 
carpets were dearly beloved of sixteenth century European painters. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, OUSHAK, FIRST HALF XVI CENTURY 
SO-CALLED HOLBEIN CARPET | 


On a field of deep green are three rows of octagonal rosettes alternating with ogival com- 
partments containing quatrefoils, principally in red and gold and with black accents. The 
octagons are arranged in diagonal repeats. 

The border consists of a highly decorative lattice pattern formed of conventionalized 
Kufic letters, ivory on red. 


This is one of the earliest types of carpets to appear in Europe. Although in 
Europe especially the term “Holbein Carpet” has been reserved almost exclusively: for 
this type, because the rug which appears in the portrait of George Gisze has almost 
exactly this pattern, there is a score of artists whose names might quite as justly be 
attached to the vigorous and engaging design. Even in the fifteenth century in paint- 
ings by Mantegna, Pinturicchio, and Ghirlandajo beautiful examples are depicted, and 
a Rafaellino del Garbo in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum shows, conspicuously placed 
on the throne of the Madonna, as clear, brilliant and exact a rendition of such a carpet 
as has ever been executed in paint. 

These rugs are justly admired and treasured. Only the smallest number have come 
to America, and only one or two comparable to this piece. Its masculine beauty, the 
splendid firmness and clarity of the entire pattern and the intricate but logical rela- 
tions of all of the decorative elements mark it as an admirable achievement, coming 
from just that significant moment in the history of the art of carpet weaving in Asia 
Minor when it was coming to the crest of its power. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, OUSHAK, END XVI CENTURY 
QUATREFOIL MEDALLION CARPET 


On a field of deep scarlet is a quatrefoil medallion in large scale, in sapphire blue orna- 
mented with lotus flowers, which in turn bears within it a smaller quatrefoil medallion in 
scarlet, the lobes of which are outlined by pale blue arabesques, the whole device centering on 
a square ornamented with gold and blue leaves. Above at either side half medallions project 
from the sides. The field is covered with broken vines with geometrical palmettes in gold, 
light green and blue. In the border are alternating conventionalized flowers in green and 
white, bracketed by pairs of arabesques joined at tip and base in darker green. (Cf. Vase 
Carpet No. 16). 


AI 


ie & ft-pouin, 

Ww. 3 ft, On 

Lent by 

Bohler 8 Steinmeyer. 


42 





No. 42 


Oushak Carpet 


CALDATL OG UE 99 


Pile, wool; warp, white wool; weft, wool dyed bright red, 2 after each row of 
knots; knot, Turkish, 9 vertical, 9% horizontal, 85 to the square inch. 


No carpet could better illustrate the characteristics of Turkish taste. The breadth, 
simplicity, richness of color and grandeur of design are all qualities which the Turk es- 
pecially loved. The four principal colors are perfect in themselves and superbly bal- 
anced, so that each is a foil for the others throughout the composition, thus intensify- 
ing and deepening the color effect. The angular lattice of flowers is to be found on the 
early Northwest Persia carpets Numbers 1 and 2 in this collection, and a quite similar 
arrangement forms the background of the Milan Hunting carpet. The quatrefoil is 
older still. In one of the earliest forms yet found, a somewhat simpler version, it ap- 
pears on a Guebri bowl recently acquired in Persia for the Chicago Art Institute; 
but on the carpet it is displayed with an amplitude and power and a suggestion of 
weight wholly un-Persian and quite unlike anything else in the history of the textile 
arts. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, OUSHAK, END XVI CENTURY 
MEDALLION CARPET 


The main field is a pure soft red, delicately covered with crisp conventionalized vines and 
foliage in glowing blue. The oval central medallion and half end medallions are 1n lustrous 
blue, enclosing a quatrefoil medallion composed of arabesques in gold and red. The in- 
tricate flanking star medallions, also composed largely of arabesques, are in deep shades of 
green with the principal ornamentation in red and gold. The border consists of small, 
beautifully drawn palmettes in gold and blue on a deep lustrous red Itke that of the field. 


The dentated margin of the main medallions in this piece is probably derived di- 
rectly from the flaming Buddhist halo which had for many centuries been familiar to 
the Persians and which they had appropriated both in various illuminations and in car- 
pet designs. The great star forms are at least as old as Sassanian art. A recently dis- 
covered piece of Sassanian brocade of the eighth century shows a somewhat similar 
form as the interstitial ornament between the great circles, while a Rhages bowl in the 
collection of Parish Watson shows a quite similar form.(*®) This carpet represents the 
summit of Oushak weaving. Such luxury and magnificence of color could hardly be 
equalled in any fabric, and the balance between the various tones 1s quite as notable as 
the force, purity and richness of the tones themselves. The carpet echoes the grandeur 
and magnificence of one of the most luxurious courts the world has ever known; a 
court which, despite even the glories of the Renaissance, quite astounded European 
visitors. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, OUSHAK, ABOUT 1600. 

MEDALLION CARPET 

A field of very deep blue is almost concealed by a great round scarlet medallion with an 
irregular deeply serrated margin and an interior ornamentation of arabesques in dark blue 
and gold, with small gold and scarlet pendants. Huge turquoise complex star or rosace 
(°°) Cf, Arthur Upham Pope, Oriental Rugs as Fine Art, International Studio, December, 1922, p. 250. 


Le ro ft..F.in. 
Wag tt, 7 im 
Lent by 

Tames F. Ballard. 


E22 tt. 

w. 9 ft. 4 in. 
Lent by 

S. Kent Costikyan. 


44 


Oushak Carpet 


oe 


ie 





CATALOGUE IOI 


forms project from the sides of the field. The lobes are decorated by outline arabesques and 
lotus in gold and red. The remainder of the field, scarcely more than a band surrounding 
the medallion and extending between points of the stars, 1s closely covered with sharply 
fragmented, highly decorative flowers and vines in gold and yellow. 

In the border, conventionalized flowers in white and red are set on an undulating vine 
in blue on a scarlet ground. 


Pile, wool; warp, white wool; weft, reddish wool 2 after each row of knots; 
knot, Turkish, zz vertical, 7% horizontal, 81 to the square inch. End borders 
rewoven. 


Just as the sixteenth century Vase carpets and Dragon carpets turned from pre- 
dominant red toward blue, so also the Oushaks exhibit the same tendency. Probably 
the initiating impulse emanated from the court at Isfahan. This carpet, in spite of the 
predominance of the blue, must be placed at the very beginning of the seventeenth 
century. The firmness and clearness of the drawing, the clear conception of the arab- 
esques and the understanding of the great star forms, both of which in later work be- 
came sadly confused, are sure evidence of a high period. The rich and decided colors 
are skilfully assimilated to one another by a number of interesting devices. The great 
medallion settles gently into its deep background because of the large serrations, un- 
doubtedly derived from the Buddhist flaming halos of Central Asia which serve as a 
sort of fringe, carrying the medallion color into the field, and the field color into the 
medallion, and embracing the whole figure with a soft radiance. The intensity of the 
blue ground is quietly modified by the irregular distribution over the entire surface of 
the complementary shades of yellow. In exploring any of these surfaces, the eye neces- 
sarily mingles the two complementaries. The effect of this is not merely to clarify and 
intensify each color, but also to create a neutral haze around each contour that obliter- 
ates all friction. 

The type of arabesque in the center is, as are those in the Ardebil carpet, taken 
over directly from the painters of the fifteenth century. The interesting structure, 
consisting of other arabesques and half arabesques, may be seen, for example, in its 
original brilliant and perfect form in “Khosrau Murdered by Sheruja at Shirin’s Side” 
by some member of the school of Bizhad. (°°) 

It was this type of carpet, so sumptuous and splendid, that particularly attracted 
Louis XIV, and in the series of Gobelins tapestries illustrating the life of Louis XIV, 
in the piece representing his visit to the Gobelins, a fine example on a similar blue 
ground is portrayed. Even finer pieces are depicted in the set of tapestries illustrating 
the life of Augustus in the royal residence in Munich, a second weaving of which is in 
the Bayerische National Museum. The type, unrecognizably degenerate, persisted 
into the nineteenth century. 

Published and illustrated in color: Jacoby, Eine Sammlung Orientalischer Teppiche, s. 
106, Tafel 32. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, FIRST HALF XVII CENTURY 

FLORAL CARPET 

Rows of red and gold leaves and foliage on a ground of soft blue form various overlapping 
diamond and hexagonal patterns. The border consists of highly simplified and con- 
ventionalized leaf and flower patterns in gold and blue on lustrous mellow red. 

(°°) Illustrated Ph. W. Schulz, Die persech -islamische Miniaturmalerei, Tafel 58. 


Eel? ftaa 10. 

w. 9 ft. 

Lent by 

B. Altman & Co. 


ap 


rns 


Wem 8 Hh neo 


a 


Dison Rineattba, hyn Pabert <itan 


Wes |, Se 


i 
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ey Jt aig 


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fe ‘ash oe 


Pm heat 





SS ES ay ae 


Bergamo Carpet 


f Niel fx 
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paeeter seen ENT IN 


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GATALOGUE 103 


Pile, wool; warp, heavy white wool; weft, wool dyed red, 2 after each row 
of knots; knot, Turkish, 13 vertical, 11 horizontal, 143 to the squareinch. 
End borders rewoven. 


The carpet is not a common type, and even among Turkish rugs its mellow, 
lustrous and beautifully balanced tones are notable. Only a few colors have been used, 
yet the color effect is rich and deep. Two kinds of red and two of blue, and one 
yellow constitute the main tones with white, brown and fawn used sparingly as buffer 
tones. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, OUSHAK, FIRST HALF XVII CENTURY 


A double arched panel of deep glowing red carries a gold center medallion decorated with 
incisively drawn conventionalized Persian arabesques, lotus and foliage patterns in green 
and blue. The vigorous corner ornaments are in gold and green and the deep blue border is 
ornamented by the Turkish edition of the cloudband. 


Pile, wool; warp, white wool; weft, red wool, 2 after each row of knots, knot, 
Turkish; 10 horizontal, 12 vertical, 123 to the square inch. End borders rewoven. 


These rich and intense little carpets were evidently great favorites in Northern 
Europe and the countries bordering on Turkey in the seventeenth century, and a large 
export trade grew up, especially with England and Holland. This particular type is not 
quite as common as the one with the all-over pattern in gold. They appear in the work 
of such painters as Tintoretto, Veneziano, Matteo Roselli from the middle of the 
sixteenth to well into the seventeenth century. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, BERGAMO, XVII CENTURY 
NOMADIC CARPET IN XV CENTURY STYLE 


The carpet, which 1s nearly square, 1s equally divided into two panels. In each of these, on 
a ground of curious red, 1s a white octagon bearing a red many-pointed star containing 
a complicated octagon surrounded by a circlet of small stars, all in various tones of ivory, 
blue, green, violet. Vart-colored checker board patterns fill the panel corners. The 
ivory border carries a succession of coarse little rosettes between rigid sets of leaves. 


Pile, wool, once very thick; warp, wool; weft wool, dyed reddish, 2 after each 
row of knots; knot, Turkish, 9 vertical, 7 horizontal, 63 to the square inch. 


Although this sturdy little carpet may have been woven as late as the seventeenth 
century, it really is a child of the fifteenth. Pieces of this general type are to be 
found in a great many pictures of the early painters, such as Memling, Ghirlandajo, 
Crivelli and especially Carpaccio. This exact type seems to have disappeared rather 
early, although the general scheme in a modified form lasted well down into the 
nineteenth century. It is certainly controlled by the ideas and artistic habits of the 
nomads, who very likely wove this actual piece. The octagons suggest Central Asia, 
while the star-like central pattern may be reminiscent of early Persian or Oushak 
carpets. The carpet is exceedingly rare. A somewhat earlier piece in the Kaiser 


Ia, 6: ftz.3 4; 

ayn ats 

Lent by 
Indjoudjian Freres. 


46 


tage ts 

Were) Lbs 

Lent by 
Indjoudjian Freres. 


ate 


La 4 ft. 6 in. 

Weer Quit. 7 in. 

Lent by 

S. Kent Costikyan. 


tee 5: De ° .* aes oe 


aK 
C 


RAY 


A 


‘4 


TAR ANS 


ae jas a8 ¥ aie ae Saas SoS ogy as ee 


SI 


: a Re TRATES we 


sa Aichi 





Bergamo Carpet 


Gree Age O:G ULE 105 


Friedrich Museum resembles it very closely but lacks a little of the richness and 
tang of color that distinguish this piece. It is remarkable what energy and impor- 
tance can be crowded into such a small fabric by the right kind of pattern and color 


chord. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, BERGAMO, END XVII CENTURY 


A field of pure and deep red carries a central quaterfoil medallion in gold. The corner 
designs of highly conventionalized.Kufic letters are rendered in moss green. The border of 
deep bluish green of varying tones is ornamented with heavy conventionalized Chinese 
cloud bands in round alternating with geometrical rosettes in white, gold and violet. 


Pile, wool; warp, plain white wool; weft, wool dyed red, 2 to 4, irregularly, 
after each row of knots; knot, Turkish, 9 vertical, 7% horizontal, 76 to the 
square inch. 


The rich colors and simple pattern of this carpet are quite characteristic of the 
taste of the common people at this time. While special weavers for the court were pro- 
ducing extremely intricate and elegant work carpets of this type expressed the com- 
mon taste. Although the elements of the design are originally Persian, they have now 
been reduced to an almost unrecognizably simple formula. The agreeably unpreten- 
tious pattern exists merely for the sake of carrying the rich and glowing colors and pro- 
viding opportunities for color mixtures and color contrasts. 


Published Heinrich Jacoby, Eine Sammlung Orientalischer Teppiche, Tafel 36. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, BERGAMO, SECOND HALF XVII CENTURY 


A central panel in ruby red with arch-like ends and pyramidal side indentations 1s 
broadly decorated by a series of sharply drawn, detached flowers in white blue, green and 
a, a x of re 
yellow and the corners are decorated with very rigid and simple arabesques. 
In the border are simple cartouches in tvory containing pairs of conventionalized 
P D 272] 
arabesques alternating with smaller stellate cartouches. 


These carpets might well be called in Victorian phraseology the “Painters 
Delight,” for a list of the seventeenth century European painters who rendered them 
with various degrees of accuracy would include a large percentage of the important 
names. So many hundreds of these pieces have been found in Transylvania that the 
name for this region, the Seven Mountain district, has become attached to the rugs 
in Europe as their common name. It is plain that they were manufactured in great 
numbers and the traffic in them was commercially important.(*) 

For all that they do not measure up to the early examples of the Holbein style 
they are, nevertheless, very decorative and agreeable, with a satisfying frank honesty 
and unpretentiousness. Their chief claim to our affections lies in the force and 
vibrancy of the colors which, by comparison, quite extinguish the fading colors that 
became popular in Turkey in the following century. 


(1) For color plates of many similiar pieces cf. J. de Végh, Tapis Turcs. 


48 


TO 16,7 itt. 

w. 4 ft. If in. 
Lent by 

B. Altman & Co. 


a 


Les ft: ,9 i, 
Wagdte TE in. 

Lent by 

Bernheimer Brothers. 





yer Carpet 


Ladtk Pra 


CONT WE TeNeN END 107 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, LADIK, EARLY XVIII CENTURY 
PRAYER CARPET 


One looks through the high triple arch which is carried on slender, sharply drawn ivory 
columns to a field of deepest red. Across the top is a recriprocal arrow-headed battlement 
from which springs a row of tulips and hyacinths in gold, white and blue. The border con- 
sists of oval cartouches on a red ground. 


Pile, wool; warp, wool, pale red; weft, coarse wool dyed bright red, 2 after 
each row of knots; warp and weft approximately same size. Sides double sel- 
vage on two red wool cords. 


The weaving of this carpet is technically so different from the other carpets usually 
ascribed to Oushak, and it has so much in common with rugs of later dates that we 
know were woven in Ladik, that we are warranted in thinking that it really does come 
from the latter region. The ordinary Ladik is frequently put down as seventeenth cen- 
tury, although since four dated pieces have been found—1794, 1799, 1804, 1807—It 
seems certain that the majority of the type were woven in the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century. We are warranted in putting this carpet back to the seventeenth or 
early eighteenth century, largely on the basis of the clear and rational architecture 
which is exhibited. In later Asia Minor carpets the columns frequently terminate in 
empty leaf forms or in water cans, or are themselves merely lace-like floral bands wholly 
devoid of architectural quality—incongruities that mark a slackening care and 
intelligence. But the drawing of the architecture in this carpet closely resembles 
that of a few Broussa prayer carpets that were certainly done as early as the be- 
ginning of the seventeenth century. (62) 

The reciprocal battlement above the arches is one of the oldest ornamental forms 
in the Orient. In this particular form it is common in Cairene architecture of the 
fourteenth century, but it has a far older history. One of Professor Herzfeld’s many 
remarkable discoveries this last year in Persia was a rock cut relief dated by inscrip- 
tion 2800 B. C., which shows a simple stepped form of the reciprocal battlement, from 
which the later forms were ultimately derived. 

The carpet was woven upside down, so that the weaver might come more quickly 
to the points of the arches and thus get them properly centered as early in the 
weaving as possible. 


WESTERN ASIA MINOR, GHIORDES, EARLY XVII CENTURY 


The field is composed of a succession of concentric panels, in the very center a small red 
quatrefoil with light blue margins surrounded by a scalloped panel in light blue with a 
delicate ornamentation of conventionalized foliage in red and white. This motive in turn 
rests on an irregularly shaped field of ivory white decorated at either end with a pendent 
lamp and covered with tiny cloud forms in brown. The corners, which may be thought 
of either as corners or as a ground panel carrying the whole decoration of the field, are in 
emerald green with a geometrical arrangement of flowers and stems. 

The main border consists of alternating pyramidal patterns in blue and red showing 
a white zigzag band between. The guard stripes are delicately undulating vines and 


leaves on white. 
(62) An especially fine one in the collection of James F. Ballard, many times illustrated, and a very beautiful 
piece in the Schloss Museum in Berlin, will be illustrated in the second volume of the new Vienna carpet book (cf. 


Bibliography). 


50 


Le 5 it, ain. 

w. 3 ft. 7 in. 

Lent by 

Bernheimer Brothers. 


51 


E. 3 ft. 6 in. 

Wi Qeitil i. 
Lent by 

S. Kent Costikyan, 





No. SL 


Carpet 


1ordes 


Ghi 


GAL AGOGUE 109 


Pile, wool; warp, wool, one thread depressed; weft, wool; knot, Turkish, 
13 vertical, rr horizontal, 143 to the square inch. 


Ghiordes weavers produced such charming little mats as well as their more famous 
prayer carpets. Extravagant age was claimed for the first pieces of the type that 
appeared on the European market about forty years ago, but it is easy to show that 
the typical Ghiordes prayer rug is nearly always an eighteenth century production, 
and that many of them were made at the beginning even of the nineteenth century. 
This little piece, however, must be regarded as one of the earliest known of the group. 

As a work of art its merits are obvious: the purity, force and variety of the 
coloring and the simplicity and energy of the patterns. These same qualities are 
also indications of age. The common carpets of the type are nearly always pallid 
in color and excessively refined in drawing having somewhat succumbed to the 
modern French influence with its boudoir tastes which was strong in this region in the 
eighteenth century. The affiliations of this carpet are with a far more virile culture. 
It reflects the energy and decision which characterized the earlier epochs of Turkish 
power when the very name of the Turks was a symbol of dread. 


ES) 
, ke bi ¥ aie 
eee we OeOG 


Rfopiay 


ae xy a 
i Petie 
yey 2 





Altar Carpet 


IV 
CARPET FROM EGYPT 


ee) 


PGY EARLY XVI CENTURY 
CAIRO 


The carpet is divided into three main sections; each center 1s occupied by a complex, cir- 
cular or hexagonal medallion rendered in a variety of shades of blue, green, ruby and gold. 
The border consists of the long cartouches and small rosette cartouches, with delicate orna- 
mentations of geometrical flower sprays, principally in green, ruby and blue. 


Until recently these carpets have been a profound mystery, and have probably car- 
ried a greater variety of names than has ever been attached to an Eastern carpet. They 
have been published as Damascus, Syrian, Syracuse, Asia Minor, Morocco and His- 
pano Moresque. Thanks now to the researches of Dr. Sarre, we can identify this type 
with as great or greater surety than any sixteenth century rug. In two notable articles (®) 
he has shown to the satisfaction of most scholars that these rugs are really the products 
of the looms of Cairo from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. 

The patterns themselves have a great variety of sources, most of them common in 
Egypt since the twelfth century, and others dating from early Coptic times. The 
carpet has taken its general form from the beautiful Mosaic fountains which one sees 
still today in Cairo, and of which there are fine examples in the Arab Museum there, 
as well as in the Louvre and in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Some of the complex 
star forms are to be found in Coptic textiles, as are other patterns, such as the little 
conical tree embraced by leaves, which appears in the famous carpet belonging to the 
Austrian state (*) and in the carpet from the Ballard collection () in the Metropolitan 
Museum but missing in this piece. Some of these star forms follow very closely the star 
and circle ornaments common in the Mosque of Sayedna Husein (1155) and Beybars 
First (1269). The long cartouche and rosette patterns are taken from the borders 
of book covers, particularly those of the fifteenth century. It isnot impossible that the 
Cairene stained glass of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries owed a good deal to the 
kaleidoscopic brilliance and richness of these pieces. 

The patterns and the color scheme are quite unlike anything known in Persia and 
Asia Minor rug weaving, and represents one of the finest of many remarkable achieve- 
ments that we owe to Muhammadan art in Egypt. From the tenthcentury on, Egypt 
vied with Persia in the production of a great variety of superb creations in all metiers, 
and the extraordinary beauty of these carpets was sustained by a succession of great 
triumphs that preceded. There is little motion depicted in these patterns, but they are 


(8) Cf. Footnote Io. 

() To appear in color in the new Vienna Book (cf. Bibliography). 

() Published in Breck. Morris, The James F. Ballard Collection of Oriental Rugs, N. Y., 1923, No. 18 and by Dr. 
R. M. Riefstahl, Das Palmenmotiv auf einem Agyptischen Teppich der Ballard Samlung in Jahrbuch der Asiatischer 
Kunst, 1925, p. 159. 


52 


Lent by 
Demotte. 


Seat “ = 
Oe ee 
eh ea i 


< , € baal’ eee oe, : 
RS Tate 2 - SN ee a ate 
palit i 


¥ 
a 





Modern Silk Carpet No. 55 


Ce Met G AUT sh mie 


highly stimulating none the less, and the bewildering variety of jewel-like facets is 
always controlled by a structural sense that prevents confusion without in any way 
diminishing the infinite resources of the minor orders. The blending of the colors is 
achieved not only by the minute fragmentation and mingling of them, but by the 
silvery sheen that lies almost like frosty dew over the whole carpet. Behind this lus- 
trous veil the colors assemble themselves in a rich and grateful harmony. 





Carpet 


nN 


So-called Holbe 


V 


CARPETS FROM SPAIN 


SPAIN, XVI CENTURY 
ALTAR CARPET 


The field of pale red is closely covered with a small lace-like pattern, consisting of two 
types of richly decorated interlacing ogives in ivory and blue. In the center a round- 
cornered, square panel contains a broadly rendered, conventionalized wreath framing the 
Christian symbol, a phoenix rising from the flames, and the devices: VICTORIA DOC 
TIS (sic) and within, EXMEMET RENIASCOR. In the four corners are smaller irregular 
panels, each bearing a death's head above crossed nails framed in a wreath. 

The border carries a complex pattern, alternating long and short, consisting essen- 
tially of pairs of arabesques united on an interior framework which in the larger pattern 
encloses a fleur-de-lis. 


Despite the austere symbols this carpet, by virtue of its mellow tones and delicate 
lace-like design, achieves graciousness and stateliness. Like the other Spanish altar 
carpets, it represents the highest attainment of the Spanish weavers and is exceed- 
ingly fine and tight in weave. It is closely related, if not the exact pendant, to a 
well-known carpet in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which likewise bears the 
death’s head symbols but has in place of the phoenix the monogram I HS. (*) 

The date is of great interest, although, thanks to a common fate that seems to 
pursue inscribed documents, the critical figure, here the 2, has been so extensively 
repaired that it is impossible to guarantee that this is the original number. The 
carpet was damaged on a lengthwise fold which necessitated reweaving a considerable 
part of the medial line. There are remnants of the original weft threads at the back 
and part of the 2 is still original, but there can be no assurance that an 8 was not 
intended, though the meager evidence of the original strands is quite as much in 
favor of the 2. The pattern, though we have insufficient evidence for dating it, 
points rather toward the end of the century than the beginning. 

While the panels are entirely European, the very firm and graceful border looks 
back to oriental models. The ground pattern, as lovely as anything to be found in 
carpet design, is derived from one of the early Hispano-Moresque brocades, which 
as early as the tenth century attained remarkable beauty. The piece was undoubt- 
edly woven by Muhammadan workmen in the employ of the Christian church. 


SPANISH CARPET, MIDDLE XVI CENTURY 
SO-CALLED SALAMANCA CARPET 


Three large floral wreathes in gold green and bluish green are placed on a field of pale 
(") Victoria and Albert Museum, Guide to the Collection of Carpets, No. 341, pea, Pl XL: 


ae 


Lent by 
Demotte 


54 


Lent by 
De Motte 


116 CAA OGG. 


green. The borders consist of highly decorative scrolling leaves in the same tones, roughly 
indicating a double-headed flying dragon. 

Despite the simplicity of means, the general effect is one of great dignity and charm. 
The angularities and deep irregular serrations of the larger wreathes endow them with an 
almost metallic firmness. The border is full of a lively fluttering movement that comes from 
the vibrant contours of the scrolling vines. 


The exact provenance of this type of carpet is not really known. The customary 
attribution to Salamanca has never been established by any detailed evidence, al- 
though it is a reasonable hypothesis. 

This carpet marks a transition from the Gothic designs to those of the Renais- 
sance. The formality and elegance of the latter period are now making themselves 
felt decisively. The carpet is no doubt a rather close copy of some of the early 
Renaissance silk brocades. Muhammadan influence still shows, not only in the 
decorative breadth of the design and the concentration of energy in the individual 
patterns, but more specifically in the formal flower sprays that project from the sides 
and the corners, which are found in the manuscript ornamentation and faience decor- 
ation of many periods. 


MODERN CARPET 


2M 


pILK CARPET COPYING PERSIAN XVI CENTURY 
VELVET CONTEMPORARY 


eee) 


Curving lancet leaves in golden ivory, with a spotted deer clinging to each one, divide aruby 
red field into ogival compartments. The leaves are decorated with lotus flowers in green 
and red and at the intersections are lion mask palmettes. In each compartment is an 
ivory cartouche outlined in silvery green blue containing two personages standing on 
either side of a conventionalized plane tree. On the right is a prince holding a falcon and 
on the left his servant carrying a sack over his shoulder and a purse in his left hand. 
The colors of the costumes vary in different cartouches—the prince 1s sometimes in a dark 
blue cloak with gold sleeves and green trousers, his servant predominantly in gold, some- 
times tn an olive or emerald green cloak with red sleeves and gold trousers, his servant 
predominantly in green. Above the tree is a wild goose in flight and in the spaces small 
flowering plants. 

The border, of the same silvery blue green that appears in the cartouche outlines, bears 
two similar personages alternating with a plane tree. The prince now holds a carafe and 
wine bowl and wears alternately a red and a gold cloak; the servant still has the sack over 
his shoulder but now carries a flower in his other hand. He is dressed alternately in gold 
and light olive green. The outer guard stripe in old gold has alternately flower sprays and 
lotus or red rosettes; the inner, of the same color, bears interlacing arabesques and spirals. 


Warp, silk; weft, red silk, 2 after each row of knots; knot, Persian, c. 2500 to 
the square inch. 


Those insecure in their appreciations, who bestow their admiration according to 
periods and glow automatically with enthusiasm when the right word is pronounced 
may be perplexed when they know that this beautiful weaving was finished in 1907 
and the weaver is still alive. But permission to enjoy such loveliness should not wait 
upon authority or argument. Those conscious of the masterpieces of earlier centuries 
should be the first to welcome this modern counterpart. Here is weaving of a fineness 
never achieved, not even attempted as far as we know, in earlier times, exceeding by 
two hundred and sixty knots to the inch the closest woven sample of early work that we 
have, the tiny fragment from the bottom of a prayer carpet now in the Altman Collec- 
tion (2240 knots to the square inch). As far as the actual technique of weaving and of 
depicting a pattern in a pile surface is concerned the piece has not been surpassed in 
any age. In the accuracy and elegance of the contours, which literally rival those of 
the miniature paintings, it will be found more exquisite and meticulously perfect than 
even the great silk hunting carpet of the Austrian State Collection. Moreover, those 
who care to spend the effort for closer examination will find many details of surprising 


55 


Leo ites th. 
w. 3 ft. 7 in, 
Lent 
Anonymously. 


118 CATALOGUE 


subtlety and relevant ingenuity. The carpet is gratifying proof that the capacity 
for weaving did not depart with the great Safavian Shahs. 

But while these praises are all warranted it does not follow that the Masters 
of the sixteenth century must now hide their diminished heads. For, in the first 
place, the design is but a faithful replica of one of the early famous Isfahan or 
Kashan velvets (°?) which touched the utmost possibilities of the art and whatever 
merit of beauty it has is derived directly from the ideas and inspirations of earlier days. 
And, in the second place, its colors, while delightful and at many points gratifying, 
lack something in purity and timbre. It would hardly be fair to the carpet to put 
it in too close proximity to such pieces as the Kurdish Medallion Carpet (No. 4) 
on the one hand or the Fragment of a Floral Carpet (No. 10) on the other. The 
piece exhibits wonderfully fine and accurate observation, extraordinary dexterity and 
inexhaustible patience but it hardly shows evidence of creative inspiration. There is 
an interesting problem also as to whether or not fineness of weave can not be carried 
to a point of diminishing aesthetic returns, whether the carpet would lose or gain if it 
were half as fine, whether or not it is better frankly to exhibit the character of the 
weaving or by superlative skill to transcend the limits of the art and pass into the 
realm of the painter and the enameller. 

It is an amusing fact that a fragment similar in weave and done by the same 
weaver at the same time passed through the hands of a very famous rug expert and 
thence to a dealer who published it in color as the finest fragment of antique Persian 
weaving ever found. It was finally sold for a thumping price to a proud and still 
unsuspecting European collector. : 3 


(87) Now in the collection of Mr. V. Everit Macy. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


eM 


A BIBLIOGRAPHY that gave a full list of all works having some bearing on Oriental 
Carpets would run into many thousands of titles and would be a source of confusion 
to most readers. The following list contains only the outstanding publications that 
are directly concerned with carpets themselves. The serious student must also 
consult various works dealing with the history, geography, ethnolology as well as the 
sociology and economics of the rug producing regions, and must have an outline 
acquaintance with Muhammadan Art in general such as is to be found in Kuehnel’s 
admirable outline of the subject, Islamische Kleinkunst, Berlin, 1925, or Migeon’s 
standard work, Manuel de l’Art Musulman, shortly to appear in a new edition. It 
was thought that frank comments on the books listed would be of more use than the 
usual vague encomiums or complete silence. 


Wilhelm von Bode und Ernest Kuehnel. Vorderasiatische Knupfteppiche aus Alterer 

Zeit. Dritte Auflage. Leipsic, 1922. (English translation, R. M. Riefstahl, 

me yveyhe, N. Y.) 

One of the fundamental books on the subject. Compact, systematic, clear. 
Does not make much effort to relate rug weaving to the cultural background that 
produced it and contains a number of details that could be corrected, but is a work 
that because of its acute observations and its detailed record of early rugs in European 
painting will always be indispensable. Contains 95 good half tones of the most 
important known carpets. 


Joseph Breck and Francis Morris. The James F. Ballard Collection of Oriental Rugs. 
New York, 1923. 12g illustrations and a number of pattern sketches. A good 
record of the best pieces in the Ballard Collection. Text conservative. 


Werner Grote-Hasenbalg. Der Orientteppich; seine Geschichte und seine Kultur. 
Berlin, 1922. | 
Numerous illustrations both in color and black and white containing, in addition 
to carpets, examples of allied Muhammadan Arts. Awkward format, poor, irrelevant 
color plates of interiors, and some errors such as are inevitable in any book on rugs; 
but on the whole the best general book that deals with the entire range of carpets, 
antique and modern. Important information and good knowledge of the literature. 


W. A. Hawley. Oriental Rugs, Antique and Modern. New York, 1913. 
A serious and systematic work. Weakest in its discussion of antique carpets. 
Very detailed classifications of the nineteenth century rugs, some of which are un- 


120 CATAL O GAGE 


certain. Useful painstaking analyses of technical structure. Like Mumford and 
other American books, gives a misleading impression that our knowledge of Oriental 
carpets 18 much more complete and secure than it 1s. 


Heinrich Facoby. Eine Sammlung Orientalischer Teppiche. Berlin, 1922. 

Written around a collection of forty-seven pieces, some of which are of little 
merit, but others of which rank with the best known. Very thoughtful comments, 
important information concerning dyes, refutation of Martin’s hypothesis of the 
Armenian origin of Dragon carpets. In technical details apparently counts each 
horizontal knot twice. Exceptional illustrations especially of an important series of 
Caucasus carpets. 


A. F. Kendrick and C. E. Tatersall. Wand woven carpets, Antique and Modern. 
London, 1922. 
Immense number of illustrations, unfortunately many of them of carpets with- 
out historical or aesthetic merit. Text brief and conservative. 


A. F. Kendrick and C. E. Tatersall. Fine Carpets in the Victoria and Albert Museums. 
Beautiful color plates of some important carpets and some not important. 

Excellent brief description. Drawings of technical details by Tatersall that are most 

important and so well done that they must serve as models for a long time. 


¥. Arthur MacLean. Catalogue of Oriental Rugs in the Collection of James F. 
Ballard. Indianapolis, 1924. 
A handsomely prepared catalogue covering a loan exhibition of carpets in Mr. 
Ballard’s Collection that are not in the Metropolitan Museum or illustrated in the 
Breck-Morris catalogue. 


F. R. Martin. A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, 2 vols. London, 1906. 
A monumental and indispensable work, with numerous illustrations, including 
many superb color plates of important carpets and very valuable illustrations of 
examples of allied Muhammadan arts. Important statements relative to Polonaise 
and Herat carpets. Despite these merits full of deplorable defects. Attributions of 
impossible accuracy are attempted without evidence, dates are frequently wrong by 
centuries, fantastic speculations are set down as facts, and the text is incoherent and 
grammatically inaccurate almost to the point of illiteracy. Long out of print. 


‘ohn Kimberly Mumford. The Yerkes Collection of Oriental Carpets. New York, 

FOUL: 

An important record of the finest collection of Persian carpets owned by a private 
individual in modern times. Each rug reproduced in color, some well, others poorly. 
Extensive text with each piece, not without serious deficiencies at some points due to 
the neglect of contemporary European studies of the subject. 


‘Yohn Kimberly Mumford. Oriental Rugs. (Last ed.) New York, 1915. 


The pioneer work in the classification of nineteenth century rugs. Based on 


CA DA LOG UE Ta 


first hand knowledge for the most part, written with good sense and a lively and 
sympathetic imagination in a style at once lucid and charming. Used as a mine by 
innumerable subsequent writers, generally without acknowledgement. Did more 
than anything else to promote interest in Oriental rugs in this country. References 
to early rugs negligible. Like Hawley, fails to give proof of modern attributions. 
Latter probably correct and could have been supplied, but the importance of some- 
thing like proof was not appreciated when the book was written. 


Munich Catalogue. (See Sarre.) 


Arthur Upham Pope. Oriental Rugs as Fine Art, International Studio, New York, 
mNovember, 1922, to April, 1923: 


Arthur Upham Pope. Values in Oriental Rugs, Arts and Decoration, New York, 
June, August, October, 1922. 
The above contain some statements shown by subsequent research to be 
erroneous. Will be published shortly in corrected and enlarged form. 


Friedrich Sarre. Altorientalische teppiche. (English edition Ancient Oriental 
Carpets.) Leipzig, 1908. 
This supplement to the first Vienna book contains many superb color plates of 
important carpets. Dr. Sarre’s text is scholarly and informing. An indispensable 
reference book. Out of print. 


Metsterwerke Muhamedanischen Kunst. Die Teppiche. Bd. I, Teil II. 

The catalogue of the carpets at the exhibition of Muhammadan Art held in 
Munich in igto. One of the great source books. Remarkable black and white 
illustrations of famous carpets of all kinds. Text brief. Out of print. 


Mittelalterliche Knipfteppiche kleinaststische und spanischen Herkunft. In Kunst 
und Kunst handwerk X Jahrg. (1907) Heft Io. 


The first as well as the most serious and important study of Spanish rugs. 


Vienna Book. The common and convenient title used in America for Altorienta- 
lishe Teppiche, Herausgegeban vom Kaiserlich kGniglich Oesterreiche Orient 
und Obersee Gesellschaft. Vienna, 1892-6. English Edition, Sir Caspar 
Purdon Clarke, London, 1892-6. 

The first important book on Oriental carpets. A sumptuous and monumental 
production. Contains finest color plates that could be made and essays of varying 
merit by the most qualified scholars of the time. Contains some inferior rugs and 
antiquated text, but the pattern analyses by Riegel are admirable, as are many of his 
penetrating observations. Long out of print, but always a useful source book. 


Supplement, Leipzig, 1908. (See Sarre.) 


New Edition; /torientalische Teppiche, herausgegeben vom Osterreicheschen Museum 
fiir Kunst und Industrie, bearbeitet von Friedrich Sarre und Ernst Trenkwald. 


122 CAS EA OG et: 


Wien, Leipzig, 1925-6. English edition, Quaritch, London. (E. Weyhe, N. Y.) 

Volume one contains the famous carpets of the Austrian State Collection, con- 
siderably enriched since the war, with a text by Dr. Trenkwald, Director of the 
Museum. Volume two will contain carpets from European and American Collections, 
with a text by Dr. Sarre and a short treatise on the history of Oriental Carpets. 
The color plates surpass anything achieved in the representation of rugs. These two 
volumes will be the standard source book for generations. 


F. deVégh and Charles Layer. Tapis Turcs. Paris, 1925. 
Portfolio of excellent color plates of Turkish rugs of the Asa ashi and eight- 
eenth centuries. Brief text. A very useful publication. 


W. R. Valentiner. Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of Early Oriental Rugs. New 

York, Igio. 

A small but important record of one of the most important exhibitions of early 
carpets ever held. Catalogue, a model of its kind, could hardly have been better at 
time of writing. The exhibition and catalogue were decisive factors in turning the 
attention of American collectors and art loving public to the earlier classical styles. 





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